


Whit Sunday

by Chastened, pockettreatpete



Series: Shroveverse [2]
Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:48:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chastened/pseuds/Chastened, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockettreatpete/pseuds/pockettreatpete
Summary: "Whit Sunday is a festival of the Christian Church commemorative of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles. The etymology of the term has been strangely confused. It has been derived (a) from White Sunday, in supposed allusion to the white garments of the neophytes, as Whitsuntide was one of the two chief seasons for baptism; and (b) from Wytsonday, i.e., Wit, or Wisdom, Sunday, in reference to the outpouring of wisdom upon the apostles. But the real White Sunday is the octave of Easter, or Dominica in albis."It's March 2015. During Lent, Chasten Glezman meets a stranger in Chicago.
Relationships: Chasten Buttigieg/Original Male Character(s), Chasten Buttigieg/Pete Buttigieg
Series: Shroveverse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2061138
Comments: 48
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

“Make me a drink I’ll like,” she says. “I want to forget.”

She reaches over the counter, dragging red nails down his white sleeve, and he watches the nails, amused, and then he says, “I’m the king of getting people what they want,” and even over the electric din of sleek drinking twentysomethings, he hears her dreamy sigh.

“So give me what I want, Chasten,” she says, voice quiet below the bass beat of the music. He glances at the too-many empty glasses between her elbows, and the color of the stains at the bottom of each one.

“You like a tart fizz, don’t you?” he asks. She smiles. “My kind of girl,” he says, and then, “I know exactly what you need,” and he pivots to stride down the length of the counter. On his left he sees lights - cyan, lemon, magenta - pouring down the windows in sheets of rain. On his right is his reflection in the bar mirror, failing to outrun itself.

“You’re shameless,” Antonio says as he passes.

“And in debt,” he says, and he picks up a sparkling glass and a bottle of bourbon. He’s facing the mirror now while his hands mix the drink by rote. He glances restlessly at the reflections of the customers behind him. The couple in the corner is still arguing. There’s a real estate deal closing at table ten. The blond guy with the trim figure and radiant skin has finally stopped looking at the door. He’s consulting a Patek Philippe watch instead.

Chasten turns around and passes Antonio again. “Take care of the blond guy. Someone stood him up. You might get a nice tip out of it.”

“What?” Antonio asks, but he has no time to answer.

He sets down the woman’s drink with a clink. “Let me know what you think,” he says, collecting her empty glasses. He turns his back but hears a moan as soon as the liquid hits her tongue. He smiles to himself, leaves the glasses in the pass-through to the kitchen, then glances again at the blond. He’s engrossed by his phone now, and tilting his screen away from the patron on the stool next to him. That means something.

Chasten prints out a guest check, tucks it into the faux leather check presenter, and signs it with a lie of a smiley face. He steps out from behind the bar, slowing as he passes behind the blond, and catches sight of a familiar app over the man’s shoulder. With his free hand, Chasten takes his own phone from his pocket, opens the same app, browses by location, and finds him. _You’re even hotter than the bartenders here, and the bartenders here are pretty hot_ , he types one-handed as he walks, and then he sends the message, slips his phone back into his pocket, and taps the woman on the arm. Her boozy laugh is delighted. He rests a gentle hand just briefly on her skin and leans in. “You told me to cut you off after five,” he whispers, and he feels her shiver under his fingertips at the same time his phone buzzes against his thigh. He steps away and comes back around the other side of the bar.

“Never mind about the blond,” he tells Antonio as he passes.

He pours a shot of vodka in front of the bar mirror. He takes a deep breath. He turns around. “Don’t feel bad,” he says. “You can do so much better.”

“Sorry?” the blond asks. He’s still staring at his phone, and his distraction and the nose wrinkle that accompanies it are adorable. But suddenly Chasten’s words hit him, and he looks up, startled. “Hello.”

Chasten pushes forward the vodka. He glances left and right, as if the sheer force of his gaze can banish everyone else from their sudden intimacy. Only then does he let himself look into the man’s eyes. They’re brown and beautiful. “Hello,” is all Chasten says, because he knows it’s all he needs to say.

“Who are you?”

The question, and the awed tone of it, triggers a ghost of a memory he can’t be bothered to place. “A bored lonely bartender whose shift ends at eleven,” he says. “Who are you?”

“Greg,” the man says. He’s mesmerized. “Gregory Holloway.”

“I’m Chasten Glezman,” he says, reaching out his hand. Greg takes it and shakes it. His grip is warm, dry, and professional. “It’s a pleasure, Greg. And hopefully it _will_ be a pleasure. But…” He straightens up. “That’s up to you.”

Greg leans back slowly, a smile dawning at the corner of his pink lips.

“I meant what I said,” Chasten says. His conviction surprises him. “Don’t waste time on people who don’t show up.”

Greg’s expression goes bland. Chasten studies it carefully. “Now you tell me,” Greg finally says, but the joke doesn’t land.

On impulse, Chasten takes Greg’s hand. He presses Greg’s thumb on his phone’s fingerprint reader, carefully opening it up. He navigates to the texting app and composes a new message - _Chasten, thanks for the advice_ \- and taps. The words disappear into the ether.

“There,” Chasten says, handing the phone back. He feels a wave of sincerity wash over him. He realizes it might be genuine. “That’s my number. Don’t rush into anything. But if you’re interested…” He swallows and glances down at the counter. The pounding music is suddenly very loud, and his voice is suddenly very quiet. “Text me your address.”

He doesn’t want to know where these sudden attacks of insecurity come from. But Greg isn’t fazed. He covers Chasten’s hand with his. It’s a small, unexpected gesture. It makes Chasten feel protected.

Then Greg’s phone vibrates and the moment shatters. Greg lifts his hand to answer. It’s a contact labeled Kimberly Holloway, and Chasten relaxes before he can even grow suspicious.

“Sorry,” Greg says apologetically. “Work.” They nod at each other, tentative smiles hopeful; they’ve said all they need to. When Greg answers, he’s immediately assaulted by the voice on the other end. When he gets a word in edgewise, he says, “Some sisters don’t call their brothers after hours shrieking about the fucking Fed, _Kimberly_ ,” but he sounds more dry than perturbed, and he listens closely to everything she says.

Chasten loops around the bar and picks up the woman’s check. He sees the tip amount and smiles.

As he’s running her card, he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He looks in the mirror. Greg is disappearing into the neon-lit rain, and he has left a hundred dollar bill and a keycard under the empty shot glass.


	2. Chapter 2

“Remember when you said you were going to stop doing this?” Antonio asks.

Chasten glances up from his phone. The walls of the bar’s coffee-stained break room are bare, aside from a single taped-up poster exhorting employees to _Keep Your Hands Clean!_ In his palm is a Zillow listing of a turn-of-the-century apartment building, photographed at dusk, every golden window glowing warm. The listing was sold a few months ago for $2.6 million.

“I said I’d stop the one night stands,” he corrects. “I never said anything about finding a hot rich boyfriend who has a penthouse kitty-corner to the Hancock tower.”

“You’d make more money as an escort.”

“And you can go fuck yourself. Which is something I won’t need to do tonight.”

As soon as the words escape, Chasten glances up, suddenly apprehensive. Their interactions are mainly jokes and jabs, and Chasten knows he's gone too far before. But then Antonio smiles at him, and he feels relieved. “Enjoy,” Antonio says, picking up his coat. “Good night.”

“That’s the goal.”

***

On the train, his bravado melts. He keeps thinking of the watch. Nervously his fingers flit across his phone, looking to see how much a model like Greg’s might sell for. His heart seizes in his throat when he finds out. Suddenly he realizes how absurd it is to go where he’s going, especially dressed in his bartender’s uniform with the polyester shirt and the suspenders and the cheap clip-on bowtie.

He gets a series of texts. They come in such quick succession that he doesn’t have time to respond one-by-one.

_Sorry, my sister roped me into a client call  
Hope it won't take very long  
Help yourself to wine_

The rain has let up a little, but he’s still damp and shivering by the time he reaches Greg’s building. At the double doors, he takes a deep breath before pulling one open. The lobby inside is warm and silent, lit by sconces dripping with discreet gilt.

He approaches the doorman. “That way to the service elevator,” the doorman says, pointing.

He’s disoriented. “What?”

The man looks Chasten up and down. His eyes are judgmental and watery. “Bartender?”

“Yeah, but...” He starts over. “I’m not here to work; I’m a friend of Greg Holloway’s.” He takes the keycard from his pocket, hoping it proves something.

The doorman seems surprised. His sigh is resigned. “Huh,” he says, and the single syllable tells a whole story. “Residents’ elevator,” and he points in the opposite direction. “Tenth floor.”

“What apartment number?”

“The tenth floor is one apartment.”

“Oh.”

“The card reader in the elevator gives you direct access.” He goes back to his crossword puzzle. “I’d be happy to answer any other questions.” His last word is an ironic mumble. “Sir.”

“Thanks,” Chasten says. He hesitates, but then pretends to know what he’s doing, crossing the lobby to the elevator and sliding the key card through the reader. The doors rumble open and shut and the quiet ascent begins. He realizes his face is still burning. By the seventh floor, he can’t keep himself from tearing off his bowtie and stuffing it deep into his pocket.

The doors open to the centerfold of a design magazine: a large luxe room, cool and glossy and white. The living space extends the width of the building, and it still smells faintly of cabinets and drywall. Chasten only catches himself staring once the doors start to close. He scrambles to push them back open and takes a ginger step onto the slate tile.

“Greg?” he asks.

His eyes flicker from focal point to focal point. A wine cellar with glass walls, eighty-odd bottles displayed in neat rows like art. An island bigger than Chasten’s entire kitchen, its countertop white and streaked with veins of platinum gray. A cold fireplace on the opposite end of the room, made of the same marble, its sleek andiron stacked high with birch wood, conspicuously unburned. Abstract paintings hung between the windows, bold thick blotches of color in the corners meekly giving way to blank canvas.

He takes out his phone and texts _I’m here._

He doesn’t get a reply.

He settles, uncomfortably, on one of the backless stools at the island. His entire posture changes. His spine stiffens, and he sits taller. Down the hall and far away, he hears a voice discussing interest rates. His inability to understand what’s being said is comforting; he’s reminded of being a little boy and hearing his mother speaking on the phone to customers. But after a while the half-heard words grow monotonous, and he slips off the stool, idly walking the perimeter of the island instead, idly drawing fingers along the cool marble.

There are hardly any personal effects in the living space, so he reads too deeply into the ones that are. The _Times_ , with smudged ink and a coffee stain. _Barron’s._ _The Economist._ _The New Yorker._ ( _The New Yorker_ is the only magazine that actually looks read, he notices.) There’s a single sandwich wrapper in the otherwise-empty trash.

He wanders along the walls, half-listening to the tones of the conversation in the distant room, waiting to hear the cadence of _well it’s been wonderful talking_ and _have a good night_ and _you, too, good-bye,_ but instead the discussion just drones on.

The only book he sees is on the coffee table. The cover is a painting of a stylish Art Deco woman driving a green car, her gaze a masterclass of condescension. He pages through it. Apparently it’s about an artist he’s never heard of named Tamara de Lempicka. He wonders why Greg has bought it, but then as he’s closing it, he sees that it’s a gift. An inscription in unruly cursive on the inside cover reads:

_Enjoy Chicago._  
_Remember Tamara._  
_\- Ward_

He’s opened the ninth kitchen cabinet door, and seen the eighth empty kitchen cabinet, when he gets a text. _Looking for something?_ He realizes too late that the conversation in the distance has ended; he turns around and sees Greg, phone in hand, pleased smirk on his face.

“You’re not the only one who can use a phone to flirt,” he says, and Chasten’s embarrassment at being caught snooping melts in the face of Greg’s satisfaction at startling him.

Greg grabs the bottle of wine off the counter, pours two glasses, and collapses onto a barstool. “I should not be having more alcohol after that shot. And yet...” He takes a sip and pushes the other glass over to Chasten.

“Not a vodka guy, I take it?”

Greg’s expression darkens just briefly, then he smiles. “Not since I became a wine guy, anyway.”

Chasten is about to say something about how he deserves something stronger than wine after being stood up, but he suddenly feels too shy and too young to bring up a boy - a man - who he knows nothing about. So instead he just nods and takes a sip, gazing the whole time at Greg’s impossibly handsome face.

There’s a moment of silence, then their questions collide into each other. “What do you do for a living?” Chasten asks. “Were you born in Chicago?” Greg asks.

“No, I’m from Michigan,” is all Chasten offers. “Northern Michigan,” he allows, when he’s afraid he sounds cagey.

“I see.” Greg bites his lip, as if weighing how much to share. “Well. I work at my family’s investment firm, being useless mostly, overseeing the Chicago branch. My main function in life is to be available to take over just in case my mother and my sister ever keel over at the same time.” He takes a quick sip. “That is, provided they don’t fire me for calling Tokyo tipsy tonight.” He tries the words again. “ _Tokyo tipsy tonight._ Sounds like a theater exercise.”

Chasten looks carefully at him. “Are you interested in theater?”

Greg laughs. His laugh is airy. “Oh, I don’t appreciate it the way I should. Which is solely on me. I should have done better, growing up in New York, but...” He sighs. “There are a lot of things I should have done better at.”

Chasten nods, taking that in. He’s decided that Greg is probably an entitled philistine when Greg speaks again. “I minored in art history though,” he offers, apologetic that it’s not more. “Columbia.” Suddenly Chasten is intrigued again.

“More?” he asks Greg, and he’s not just asking about the wine. He pushes his empty glass forward. He hopes that Greg is drunk enough to keep talking about himself.

He’s not. But he does graciously, expertly pour another glass. “You know,” he says, “you have an interesting quality about you.”

Chasten swallows. “Yeah?”

Greg looks straight at him. “You make whoever’s talking to you feel like they’re the only person alive. Do a lot of people tell you their secrets without knowing why?”

It’s a perceptive insight for a tipsy man. Chasten treads cautiously. He lies. “I’ve never really thought about it,” he says.

“Can I tell you one of my secrets?” Greg flushes as soon as he says the words. His gaze disappears over Chasten’s shoulder. “It might be useful to you, on the off chance we see each other again.”

“Yes,” Chasten says. He wonders if he’s imagining the sudden frisson.

But then Greg hesitates. He holds his glass by the stem and swirls the blood-colored liquid inside. The face of his watch is close and conspicuous. “I’ve known bad people,” he says. “They’ve taken advantage of me. Emotionally. Which is easy to do because I’m rich and I have a weak character.”

The hurt, ironic way he says _weak character_ suggests he’s had the phrase thrown at him before, more than once. Chasten wants to touch his hand in sympathy, but instead he just grips his own stem tighter.

“I’m not looking for sympathy,” he continues, as if reading Chasten’s mind. “I don’t deserve any.” (Chasten wonders if this is true.) “I’m just saying, that’s why I’m not great at…” He waves his hand. “ _This._ So, condolences.”

Chasten always knows what to say, but he doesn’t know what to say. “This?” he repeats.

“Yeah. Whatever this is. Or will be.” Then, to himself, mumbled into his glass, with self-loathing: “Or was.”

Chasten says three words. “What is this?”

Greg considers. He sets down the glass. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Would you like to find out?”

Silence. Greg stands and steps closer. His voice lowers. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I would.”

Chasten takes a long sip from his wine, not breaking eye contact. He’s trying to be sultry. He doesn’t know if it’s working, but Greg’s brown eyes stay fixed on him. “Then tell me,” Chasten says. He swallows again. His lips and throat and tongue and voice are all coated with the same rich taste he’s been drinking. “Tell me what you think happens tonight.”

Greg’s smile flickers. “I mean…” He trails off and takes another step. Now he’s so close he could rest a hand just above Chasten’s hip, and he does. “You were the one who invited yourself over. So what do you see?”

Chasten smiles, too, presses himself into the warmth of the hand. Suddenly he’s desperate to see a blush spread across that perfect skin - desperate to make him avert his eyes and bite his lip and moan. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to make him skittish. So finally, carefully, he goes for the most direct answer.

“Honestly, I was thinking of fucking you.” He pauses and looks him in the eyes. “Maybe twice.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chasten feels the hand on his waist tremble. Out of nowhere, he remembers another hookup: Peter, the closeted politician, and how easily he’d come undone with just a few words. This man will be the opposite of that, he realizes; he’ll need to be coaxed. He adjusts his approach accordingly, adding “if that’s something you’d be into,” and rests a gentle hand on Greg’s face. He wants to convey to Greg that any decision he makes will be fine.

Greg’s hand trembles again. He blinks and takes a shaky breath and presses his cheek just barely into Chasten’s palm. “Excellent,” he says eventually, and his voice cracks. Chasten smiles at that, and starts brushing his thumb against his skin. Greg rushes to paper over the sudden vulnerability. “I was about to say ‘I think I can fit that into my schedule’ but…” He takes a few fast, shallow breaths. “That doesn’t sound like a joke from the guy who was just on a client call at midnight, does it?”

Chasten whispers. “No,” he says. “It doesn’t.”

He leans in to kiss him. It starts as a soft kiss, then gets more insistent. He keeps his hand on Greg’s face. When they break apart, Greg looks spellbound.

Chasten can’t repress a satisfied smile. “So,” he says. “You want to show me where the magic happens?”

Greg’s laugh is gratifyingly weak. He nods.

Chasten lets his fingers drop from Greg’s face, and takes Greg’s hand. “Lead the way.”

Greg does, grip tight. He pulls Chasten down a long white corridor lit by recessed lights and lined by doors. Only one is open, and Greg hesitates just outside of it. “One minute,” he says, out of breath, “just one minute, I promise,” and, not letting go of Chasten’s hand, he ducks inside to grab a paper from the fax machine. As he reads, his grip on Chasten absentmindedly loosens. Chasten digs his fingernails into his palm, and at the sensation Greg looks up, newly dazed.

“Nice office,” Chasten comments, even though the nicest thing about it is the fresh-faced, fuckable blond standing in the middle of it.

Greg looks around at the laptop and tablets and scattered books and binders. “Realistically speaking,” he says, “ _this_ is where the magic happens.”

Chasten laughs. He can tell Greg likes his laugh - likes his smile. He takes the fax out of Greg’s hand, sets it down on the desk, pulls Greg out of the room, and leads him to the hall’s last unopened door.

“But again,” Greg belatedly adds, “not the best joke from the workaholic jackass who made you wait for half an hour while --” He falls silent when Chasten opens the door and turns on the light.

The bedroom is like the rest of the condo: as luxe and impersonal as a hotel suite. There’s a gas fireplace - more abstract art - two windows, one looking across the street to another apartment building, the other tucked in the corner and with a view past the John Hancock building to the Lake - layers of expensively neutral sheets and comforters and pillows, ecru and beige and cream and tan and silver. It is a tasteful, well-mannered space that is just as impossible to read as its owner.

Greg is oblivious to how Chasten has slowed, intimidated. But as soon as Greg starts unbuttoning his shirt, a wave of lust pushes him away from marveling at the room and back toward marveling at the man.

“Let me help,” Chasten says, reaching forward, not waiting for permission. He feels Greg pull back under his fingers before he relaxes into the touch.

“Yes,” Greg breathes. His smooth voice has gone husky, and his hands hang leaden at his sides. Chasten races sheepishly through the buttons of his own polyester uniform, stumbles out of his cheaply made pants and suspenders. Finally, once they’re both undressed, he strokes fingertips down Greg’s bare forearm and touches the watchband. Somehow it burns on his fingerprints - and Chasten realizes, panicked, that his self-assurance has vanished. But Greg is so sinewy under the dress shirt; his chest and arms are so desperately touchable; Chasten knows deep down he’s gone too far to stop. So before Greg can see too much of him and realize what a mistake he’s made, he goes to work, kissing him again, and again, and again, and deeper. He only relaxes once he feels a soft moan spill onto his lips. He redoubles his efforts until the moans get loud.

Once Chasten takes off the watch for him, Greg’s patrician aura vanishes completely, and Chasten feels a bone-deep relief tossing it to the other side of the bed. He lets himself fall backward onto the mattress, pulling Greg with him to land on top, kisses him more, kisses him harder. His hands run over Greg’s body, fingers drinking in each muscle. He wants to learn them, he realizes. He wants to learn them all, and he’s already addicted to this man’s deep muffled sounds.

His body’s pushing them both too fast. He presses lightly at Greg’s shoulders, nudging him to sit up. They both moan as he does, their groins shifting against each other. “God, you look good,” he says, “you’re so fucking hot; you look so good like that; you - ” He runs out of breath. He wants to dive in again.

“So do you,” Greg says, and to Chasten’s relief he sounds just as breathless as he feels. “You know where you’d look even better, though?”

Chasten knows the answer; he’s electrified at the thought. “Where?”

“On top.”

Greg rolls over, tries pulling Chasten with him. “Oh, yeah?” Chasten grins, elbows straddling Greg’s warm smooth chest, lower body wrapped between long legs.

“Yes,” Greg answers, sincerity almost heartbreaking, and he presses an open-mouthed kiss to Chasten’s neck, triggering a full-body shiver. “Stuff’s in the drawer,” he says into his skin, muffled, angling his chin toward a bedside table, but it takes a while for Chasten to gather the strength to separate even a few inches from him. Their hips push in rhythm against each other. Then, in a low urgent quavering voice - “fuck me, Chasten,” he says, “please,” and before he knows what he’s doing, Chasten’s yanking open the drawer and shakily collecting condoms and lube. He has a flash of a thought wondering when the bare drawer was opened last. He has a gut instinct that it’s been a while.

If he’s right, he should make it good. He scoots down to his cock and lowers his lips onto him, slowly, and is just about to relax into it when Greg thrusts up hard, then drags himself away.

“Shit,” Greg says, “shit, sorry. Sorry. Shit, I wasn’t ready.” He pants as Chasten sputters. “You - are you okay?”

Chasten coughs, runs the back of his hand over his own mouth. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have just…” He smiles helplessly at Greg reaching out for him. “I was trying to be smooth.” He lets out a hesitant confession. “I want this to be good for you.”

Greg’s head falls back to his pillow. They both breathe heavy. Chasten can taste the wine on his own breath. “I’m sure you’re very good,” Greg says, “I just…” His forehead wrinkles until he remembers something, and seizes onto it. “I’m not good at _this_. Remember?”

Chasten feels a thin thread of doubt beginning to unspool. “Oh, I doubt that,” he says, pushing the doubt away. “You want to stop or keep going?”

Greg takes a deep breath. “Keep going,” he says. “Please keep going.”

“Okay.” Chasten feels reassured. He settles on his haunches and tries a more direct approach. “So, blowjob. Yes, no, not right now, other?”

He’s relieved at Greg’s relief and his sweet grateful smile. “‘Not right now’ would be good.” He squirms. He looks turned on out of his mind, and his cock is straining. “I’m better at giving them than receiving them, though, just for the record; I’m not a completely useless…” He trails off, eyes squeezing shut when Chasten’s hands start caressing him.

“The record will so reflect,” Chasten murmurs. “You’re good at giving.” He drifts fingers across skin for a quiet moment. “Want me to fuck you?”

It takes a moment for him to answer. “Yes,” he finally grits out.

Chasten nods. He puts lube on his shaky fingers, eyes traveling from Greg’s golden hair to closed eyes to pressed-together lips to clenched, twitching abs. Carefully, he takes Greg’s ankle and sets the sole of his foot down against the mattress.

Greg takes a deep groan of a breath when Chasten’s fingers brush against him. Chasten is fascinated by how he tightens up, then relaxes completely, as he explores. “You okay?” he asks after a while.

Greg shifts his head, turns his cheek into his pillow. He stares out the window. Chasten follows his gaze. All he can see are stacks of windows across the street: a few lit, most dark. Chasten’s fingers slow down. With great effort, Greg turns to look at him. “I’m okay,” he says finally. “So okay.”

_You’re about to be better_ , Chasten thinks but doesn’t say, and he pushes a finger inside. He feels more than hears the responding low moan. Greg looks so transported, it doesn’t seem like his eyes can see anything anymore. His hips are moving now in rhythmic circles. Chasten checks his breaths. They’re getting shallower. Biting his lip, he adds a second finger, and basks in the feeling of Greg pushing back against him. When he hits the spot inside, Greg rears up, crying out - it’s the loudest Chasten has heard him be all night - then bears down on Chasten’s fingers again, greedy.

“I’m ready,” he gasps. “I’m ready. I’m ready.”

Chasten smiles. He twists his fingers another time, and enjoys the new groan. “How do you want it?”

“Like this,” Greg says, then he seems to cower a bit at his own request. “Is that okay?” he asks, and he opens his eyes to flicker them across Chasten’s face, worried.

Another smile. “Yes. It’s very okay.”

Chasten puts on a condom, gets ready. He simultaneously loves and loathes the idea of Greg’s eyes appraising his body. He doesn’t like what he knows Greg will see. But then he works up the nerve to look at how Greg is looking at him - and it’s a stare of awe and barely restrained need. Greg isn’t judging his arms or the pudge of his stomach. This man wants _him_. This handsome man whose watch alone is worth twice what he makes in a whole year wants _him_.

Chasten kisses him; he suddenly needs to. Then he pulls back and presses inside. He pushes Greg’s knees up against his chest. He’s going to make it good.

“God,” Greg gasps, “I - ” He can’t finish.

Chasten feels muscles twitching, rippling beneath him. He runs his hands over whatever he can. “I know,” he says. He knows.

He starts moving as slow as he can bear. ( _I want it to be good; I want it to be good_ , and he moves to the rhythm of his own repeating thought.) Greg doesn’t make a lot of noises, but the ones he does make are slow and delicious, and the pitch of them goes higher when Chasten pushes all the way inside.

He’s going faster when Greg’s head tilts into the pillow again. He looks out at the building across the street, and falls completely silent. Suddenly it seems like he can’t see a thing, like he’s falling asleep tipsy in himself.

So Chasten takes a hand, reaches between them, shaky, to help him out. As soon as his fingers touch flesh, Greg’s attention snaps back. His fingers wrap around Chasten’s - Chasten feels a rush of connection as he realizes they’re about to share the motion together - but then Greg just takes Chasten’s hand away and drops it on the sheet. Chasten stops, panting, studying his face. In reply, Greg quirks a smile - then squeezes tight around Chasten.

He yelps in surprise. “ _Fuck_.”

“Yes, that’s what we’re doing,” Greg says, but his tease is undermined by his breathlessness.

Chasten laughs, then starts thrusting in gentle retaliation, smiling as the motion makes Greg’s mouth open and head loll to the side with a gut-deep groan.

It doesn’t take long for Chasten to come. For a while afterward he lingers in the haze, mind consumed by the feeling of release and the challenge of staying propped up on shaky arms, until, to his relief, Greg comes too, biting his lip until the skin around it goes white.

Chasten pulls out, rolls over onto his back.

They say nothing and just lay there, panting. 

Eventually Greg rolls over. He reaches out toward the other bedside table, returning to the center of the mattress with tissues. Chasten almost offers to help, but then he remembers what Peter said - “don’t be kind.” He doesn’t know why, but it sounds like good advice.

Once his limbs start working again, he stumbles to the en-suite and drops the condom into the trash. He’s not present enough to notice much about the bathroom, besides that it’s sleek and soulless. It’s a relief to return to the bed and the warm body in it.

He’s leaning in for a kiss when he sees that Greg’s lashes have gone damp and spiky. He feels a trickle of worry. “You okay?”

Greg looks up. “Very,” he whispers. His expression is dazed and adoring. “Why?”

Chasten touches under his eyes, then shows him the shard of wetness on his fingertip. “You’re crying,” he says.

Greg’s voice is going soft and sleepy. “No.” He takes Chasten’s hand, rubs it lightly, kisses his own tear away. “That just happens. Narrow tear ducts or something.”

Chasten watches his pink lips brush against his fingers. “I should head home,” he finally says, slowly.

But it’s the last thing he wants to do, and when Greg turns the full force of those warm brown eyes on him, they melt him. “But I was promised ‘twice.’”

_You didn’t seem to enjoy the first time that much_ , Chasten doesn’t say.

Chasten’s hesitation clearly makes Greg uneasy. He struggles up on his elbows, trying to convey his earnestness. “Either way, you’re welcome to stay. I think you saw earlier,” and he smiles wryly, “that I don’t have much in the way of breakfast, but we could go out together; there’s a French cafe that opens early before...” He trails off, as if embarrassed at himself.

“If you’re sure?” Chasten can still see a sheen of tears on his cheeks.

“Yes, Chasten. I’m sure.”

They kiss then, slow and languid. When they pull apart, Chasten moves to settle content beside him, to create a warm island together in the chilly king-sized mattress.

“I… Ah, I - ” Greg sits up. Chasten follows, concerned. “I’m not…” He shrugs, sheepish. “I’m not good at this,” he falls back on. “I get all jerky in my sleep and I’ll elbow you and I don’t want - ”

Chasten rescues him. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry I’m such a - ”

“Greg,” he interrupts, firm. “It’s okay.”

Greg nods, then watches Chasten retreat to the other side of the mattress. Once he’s settled into the plush pillow, relishing the feel of soft sheets over bare shoulders, he looks over at Greg. They smile at each other, involuntarily. Chasten has the woozy, happy thought that he wouldn’t mind trying to fuck him again right now.

Modestly, Greg twists around beneath the sheets and reaches out to turn off the bedside lamp. The only light left is from the ambient glow of the city.

Chasten’s half-asleep when he feels fingers reach out for his wrist. He rolls onto his side and waits a moment. He’s not sure if Greg will pull away.

He doesn’t.

“I’m glad he didn’t show,” Greg whispers to the space between them.

“Me, too,” Chasten says. He stays awake to watch Greg fall asleep. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he sees the watch tossed at the foot of the bed, forgotten.


	4. Chapter 4

He pushes open the heavy door, stepping out of sizzling kitchen grease and into an alley smelling of damp asphalt and exhaust. In the distance he hears sirens, taxi horns, and the squeal and hiss of hydraulic brakes as the buses stop and go.

He leans against the brick wall, listening, and crinkles open a paper bag of pilfered food. The wan warmth of the sun on his face feels like the promise of something better.

“Hey,” he hears, and he’s startled out of his solace.

“Hey,” he says back reflexively. Suddenly he notices Antonio’s head poking out from behind the dumpster. He’s chewing, and there’s a sandwich in his hand.

“Do you want to - ?” Antonio hesitates. “Eat by me?” He qualifies: “If it feels too weird, that’s okay.”

Chasten thinks about it for a moment. He straightens up and shakes his head - “it’s not weird,” he says - and makes his way gingerly around the dumpster to sit down next to him. They both notice a rat dashing madly across the alley, but neither of them say anything about it.

“Sorry I didn’t say hi,” Chasten says as he settles in. “I didn’t see you back here.”

Antonio takes a bite. Chasten can smell the tartness of a pickle, the egginess of the mayonnaise. “I’m hiding,” Antonio says after he swallows. “Tim has it out for me today.”

“Tim has it out for everyone every day,” Chasten says. He opens his paper bag and wordlessly offers a side of fries. Antonio shakes his head. Chasten takes one for himself. It’s soggy.

“I figure I’m safest here by the garbage.”

“You are.” Horns hammer away in the street. “What a shit manager.” He reconsiders. “What a shit job.”

They both look straight ahead at the building across the alley, dirty and covered by illegible scratched graffiti. When Antonio finally speaks, he does so with a forced casualness, right before taking another bite of his sandwich.

“Do you think he’d report me?”

The sirens in the distance suddenly take on new meaning. Chasten feels the raw spring wind whipping around them both, and he pulls his thin coat tighter. “I don’t know.”

He glances at Antonio. Antonio glances away.

He hesitates, then wordlessly opens his paper bag again and brings out a bottle of beer, offering it. Antonio shakes his head again. “I’m sorry,” Chasten says. “I wish I knew what to say. I just feel bad I can’t fix it. I don’t like it when things aren’t fair.”

Antonio softens at that. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

They don’t say anything for a while. The bread in Chasten’s sandwich is soaked through with mayonnaise, the lettuce is limp and tastes like nothing, and he can’t get the rich smell of the trash out of his throat. It’s an objectively terrible place to eat dinner. But he’s too hungry and tired to move.

“Are you busy tonight?” Antonio asks.

“I mean…” Chasten trails off. “Yeah.”

“Oh.” Antonio deflates a little. “You’ve been busy a lot lately.”

Chasten doesn’t say anything.

“You’ve been rushing out of here a lot right after your shift...” Antonio lets the words hang in the air.

“Mm,” Chasten says, noncommittal.

Antonio gets more direct. “Is it the blond?”

Chasten doesn’t answer. Instead he takes a soggy corner of sliced cheese, rolls it up into a tiny ball, and tosses it across the alley, hoping to lure a rat out for entertainment. Once he realizes what he’s doing, he sighs and takes a swig of beer.

“You don’t need to play dumb,” Antonio continues. “I’m not asking to fuck you.” He sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself. Maybe he is. Chasten takes another sip.

“Yeah,” Chasten finally says. “It’s the blond.” He leans forward a bit, looks from side to side, willing the rat to reappear so they have something else to talk about. It doesn’t.

“Does the blond have a name?” Antonio asks.

“Greg,” he says. “Gregory Holloway.”

“How did he make his money?”

Chasten tries to sound casual. “His family’s in investment banking. He grew up in New York. Moved here a few months ago to oversee a new branch.”

It takes a moment for Antonio to digest this. “And?”

“And what?”

Antonio waves a hand. “Well, what’s he like? As a person?”

It strikes Chasten that he hasn’t described Greg to anyone yet. “Well,” he says. “He works a lot. Obviously.” He remembers the white marble of the kitchen island. “His condo is nice.” He hears what he’s just said and makes an addendum. “ _He’s_ very nice.” Then, softer: “He’s very nice to me.”

“Are you two dating?”

Chasten finishes his sandwich with one last big bite. It takes a long time before he can swallow and say, “I’m not dating anyone.” He considers his next word, dances around it, before giving in. “Yet.”

Antonio’s amused chuckle grates on him. “Aha. So you’re...what? His Midwestern fuck boy?”

Chasten’s irritation flares. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, even though he knows exactly what it means.

“Let me guess.” Antonio suddenly changes his mind about having a beer; he slips his hand into the paper bag with a knowing glance and takes a swig. “He’s talked about having all his rich work friends over for a private party to meet you, and he wants you to fix _all_ the drinks because you’re just _so_ good at it, and - ”

“Toni,” Chasten says, a warning note in his voice.

Antonio ignores him. “And he wants to show you off to them like you’re a sentient bartending doll he just bought.” Antonio crumples up his scratchy tan napkin and wipes the mayonnaise from the corners of his mouth. “Just remember, that’s all we are to men like that. Toys to make them feel good. To remind them they control the world.”

“You don’t know Greg,” Chasten finds himself saying. _Do you?_ , something inside him sasses back, but he doesn’t follow the thought.

“I may not know Greg, but I know men like Greg. I spend my whole night getting yelled at and hit on by guys like Greg.”

“Don’t be rude, please,” Chasten says. His voice sounds pinched. “Being even…” He searches for a word, can’t think of one, then makes one up. “Being even _dating-adjacent_ is hard enough already. You know that.” He hesitates before twisting the knife. “Or you would have, if you’d ever actually cared about me.”

Antonio doesn’t respond. Finally he makes a move to stand up. “You know, it’s getting late,” he says. “I’m glad you’re with someone so...nice.”

Chasten reaches out to take his wrist. The skin on it feels warm and familiar. “Stop. Please.” He lifts his hand off, not wanting to send the wrong message. Antonio sits back down. “Look, I don’t mean to be defensive, okay? But if things go well, I might actually have something with him. Finally. And I’m…” He swallows and looks away from Antonio’s eyes. “And I’m so scared something’s going to mess it all up.”

Antonio studies his face, then finally nods. He searches for another topic of conversation. “So,” he says eventually. “How are the school plans coming?”

Chasten takes another long drink, resting the back of his head against the wall again. After a while, Antonio gives up on getting an answer, or even talking at all, shifting his position to take out his phone instead.

Finally Chasten talks. “I’ve been thinking.” He looks into his paper bag and, stomach turning, suddenly stands up and tosses the leftovers into the dumpster. “Is the debt really…” He trails off, voice cracking, then tries again from another angle. “In the end, will the debt be worth it?”

Antonio stares at him. “What?”

Chasten hurries through his explanation. “Well. By the time I’d finish, I’d be one hundred, two hundred thousand in debt. I’ll never pay that off. So maybe it just makes more sense to stay working here and at Starbucks, save up for - ”

Antonio interrupts. “But I thought you needed another degree to do the job you want to do.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t do what I want to do.”

“Then what _would_ you do?”

Chasten can’t answer that. He looks down at his shoes to avoid Antonio’s piercing gaze. He kicks a few stray pebbles in irritation. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But I don’t need to know. I don’t need to have it all figured out.”

“You should have _some_ of it figured out.”

He gets defensive. “There are options.” A twinge of derisiveness hits his voice. “For instance, maybe I’d be a good doll for somebody.”

He gets a grim satisfaction out of seeing Antonio exasperated. “You’d be a terrible doll, and you know it.” Antonio looks him up and down, as if Chasten has turned into a stranger. Maybe he has. “What’s gotten into you, anyway? Going back to school was all you ever used to talk about.”

In a rush Chasten remembers the blur of self-doubts and broken hopes, and especially the sheer shame-faced despair of that Tuesday afternoon in February, when he’d realized he wouldn’t be getting the scholarship he’d been hoping for.

Finally his eyes drag themselves away from Antonio’s curious gaze, and his line of sight climbs up the skyscraper to the paling clouds. Before he can stop himself, he asks a question. “Do you ever get tired of being down here when there are people up there?”

Antonio doesn’t answer. When Chasten looks down again, he sees Antonio has followed his gaze. He turns that gaze back to him.

“Every single day,” Antonio says.

Chasten’s not prepared for the sudden surge of emotion. He blinks to brush it away. “I just… I wish things were easier,” he says.

“I know,” Antonio says. The two words are quiet.

They say nothing for a while, reluctantly understanding the other. As a sort of olive branch, Chasten offers a compromise. “Maybe I’ll save up this year and go back to school next year.”

Antonio shakes his head. “No,” he says. "If you don’t go back to school this year, you’re never going back, period.”

“Why?”

“Because shit’s never going to get easier.”

“Well,” Chasten says, shivering a little and desperate to avoid absorbing what that prospect means. “Maybe you’re wrong.”

His phone buzzes in his black polyester work pants. It’s early evening and he’s waiting on a text from Greg, but when he takes out his phone, it’s not Greg’s number. It’s spam: an unfamiliar number from a distant area code.

He’s moving to delete it when, in the space of a heartbeat, he realizes it’s not spam.

_Hi, this is Peter from February 17. Hope it's okay that I'm texting you. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch until now. Is there any chance we could meet up and talk some time soon?_

He breaks out into a bark of disbelieving laughter. He doesn’t know what else to do.

Antonio is wary. “Is that Greg?”

He laughs again. “No. Definitely not Greg.” A realization hits him. “Oh my God.” He looks up from his phone. “Today’s Easter, isn’t it?”

"Verdaderamente, ha resucitado," Antonio says with his eyes still on his own phone. When he glances up and sees Chasten's blank look, he quirks a small smile. "Yeah," he says. "It's Easter."

“That…” His face starts to flush. He can’t get over Peter’s nerve - or the fact that he really did wait all through Lent, and apparently thinks Chasten might have, too. Unbidden, he thinks of Peter alone in his too-big bed, dogeared Bible on his bedside table, wrestling with his conscience, trying to forget the light electrifying brush of fingertips or the rhythmic hunger of their kisses, and instead cracking like a raw egg. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “What an entitled asshole.” He shakes his head. “Literally.”

“I’m assuming I don’t want to know.”

“You do not.” He shakes his head a little to clear it and checks the time - 6:20. “Look,” he says. “It was great catching up.” As soon as he says the words, he realizes they haven’t done much catching up at all. “I should go. Greg’s letting me make a late dinner for us at his place and - ”

“It’s fine,” Antonio says. It’s starting to get darker, and any light Chasten saw in his eyes earlier has vanished. “It’s all fine. I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.”

He waits for a final cutting send-off, as is their tradition. But Antonio has turned his attention back to his phone and his food. Chasten stands there, waiting. He has always been the kind of person who people open up to. But Antonio doesn’t open up to him. Once he realizes nothing more is going to be said, he pulls open the door.

*

He turns the hot water all the way up in the guest bathroom shower, because he can. He leaves the used towels wet on the floor, because he can. He shrugs on the white terrycloth robe against his bare skin, because it’s hanging on the hook, and he can.

Still damp-haired, he settles into bed, content to wait to be needed. Greg is pacing the hallway outside the door, talking into his phone.

Chasten takes out his own phone and, half-listening, rereads the day’s texts. Greg’s last is the most recent:

_Dinner’s still on, but work crisis brewing. Have to make calls late but I’m looking forward to you anyway. You don’t mind?_

The next most recent is Peter’s. He deconstructs it line-by-line to the accompaniment of Greg’s one-sided conversation.

 _Hi, this is Peter from February 17._ (Did he think there were Peters from other days…?)

“I made your client an offer,” Greg says. “A very generous one, in fact. Forgive me if I’m not convinced by the posturing.”

 _Hope it's okay that I'm texting you._ (The infuriatingly tentative assumption…)

“I don’t - with all due respect, the firm doesn’t owe you anything, and I certainly don’t - well, yes, but the thing is, I’ve heard all this before. I’ve _heard_ it. I’m not interested in - ”

 _I'm sorry I haven't been in touch until now._ (The preemptive apology, papering over the absurd absence...)

“But surely you understand how it looks from our perspective. It looks flaky. Flaky as hell.”

 _Is there any chance we could meet up and talk some time soon?_ (Is that the new euphemism for desperation-fucking? Talking?)

“What did you think it was, then?” Greg pauses, listening. When he speaks again, his tone is laconic. “Really.”

Chasten looks out the window at the silent traffic below and the Lake beyond. He wonders if he should be kinder to Peter. Then he remembers that Peter is a closeted politician. His guilt evaporates.

“Look,” Greg says. “I like you, so can I be frank? I’ve spent my entire career cleaning up bodies after my sister butchers them. I get it, that’s the role I need to play if I want to get anywhere in the firm. And playing that role means I come across as the nice one. But just because I’m not the attack dog Kim is... Don’t think I won’t shut your client out and kill this whole deal in cold blood if that’s what’s best for me and my family and my company. Understood?”

Chasten’s attention drifts back to Peter’s message for the tenth time. He’s vacillating between replying dismissively or blocking or deleting or muting. In the end, he can’t decide what to do or what tone to take, so he does nothing, and just sets the phone on the nearest bedside table. It’s glass-topped, and the phone reflects in it.

“So here’s what I want you to do,” Greg says. He’s stopped pacing. “Take a few hours tonight, mull it over. Remember I hold all the cards. Go back to your client. Explain everything. And then come back to me with a better offer. Maybe it doesn’t look like it, but I don’t let myself get hurt. No one in my family lets themselves get hurt. And that’s why we’ve been in business since the Civil War. That’s all I have to say. Call me when you change your mind.”

Chasten watches Greg stalk into the bedroom and flick off the overhead light in annoyance. He hasn’t even taken time to change yet; he’s still in his shirt and tie from work. He collapses backward onto the bed, rubbing his own forehead with his fingertips. Carefully, Chasten leans over and starts to touch his face, tentatively tracing along the hairline, drifting down to the left cheekbone, then the right, then across his eyebrows. The pattern makes Greg’s breath slow.

Once he’s relaxed, Greg opens his eyes. “I hate talking to people like that.”

“Mm,” Chasten says. They’re both quiet for a while. “Did you mean it? What you said?”

His eyes close again. His voice sounds driftier. “I meant it,” he says. He sounds reluctant. “Unfortunately. We have to be cutthroat. And I can be, and I am. And it’s satisfying in the moment. But it still eats me alive.”

Chasten pulls his hand back and sinks back into the pillows, thinking. “Does a…” He tries out words in his head - _direct, assertive, self-assured_ \- before just using Greg’s word. “Does a cutthroat approach get results?”

“I wish it didn’t, but it usually does. Unless I push it too far. Then sometimes the deal falls apart. On the other hand, when it does, it’s usually for the best.” He pauses, then smiles grimly. “Or that’s what I tell my sister anyway.” He bites his lip. “Shit, Kim’ll be so pissed.”

Chasten leans over, leans down. Greg lets himself be kissed, but he doesn’t respond much, no matter how gentle or insistent Chasten gets. He’s just too distracted. Eventually Chasten pulls back, gently patting his cheek instead. At that, Greg takes his hand in his and rolls onto his side to appraise him.

“Didn’t take you for one interested in corporate negotiating tactics,” he says, his smile wry.

Chasten smiles back. “Yeah, well. Wide ranging interests, I guess.”

Greg rolls onto his back again. “I like that you asked.”

“Asked what?”

Greg looks at the flames in the fireplace. His face fades into seriousness. “I like that you understand how much my job means to me.” He hesitates. “Not a lot of people have.”

Chasten nods. He intertwines their fingers. Studies their similarities, their differences. “I think,” he says finally, carefully, “that finding meaning in a job is a very important thing to most people. Isn’t it?”

Greg turns his head and looks at him. He’s studying a puzzle in Chasten’s expression, and Chasten is relieved he won’t be able to solve it.

That night, Greg falls asleep before he does. The last thing Chasten does is reach out for his phone. He thinks of a dozen cutting replies to send to Peter. But in the end, he sends none of them, and mutes the conversation, and that’s all.


	5. Chapter 5

The carpet is soft under his feet. The walls are forest green, but there isn’t much of it showing between the light-paneled open closets lined with suits. They come in dozens of shades of black, blue, and gray, some with discreet check patterns, some with muted pinstripes. Some are heavy wool, perfect for a Midwestern (or East Coast) winter; others are so light Chasten thinks you could probably work out in them and be perfectly comfortable. 

He buttons up his only dress shirt. He took it from his own broken-doored apartment closet before he left for work, and he’s painfully aware it’s the cheapest piece of fabric in the whole exquisite walk-in. He could probably buy thirty of them for the price of the perfectly ironed Tom Ford slowly obscuring Greg’s perfect pectorals from his view. He looks down at the long shallow drawer in front of him, open to reveal row upon row of rolled-up ties. Somewhere in the back of Chasten’s mind he remembers a nursery rhyme as his eyes trace the length of the drawer. _Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet makes a rainbow_. He wonders if Greg is the one who organized them like this, starting with the reds and flowing through to the purples at the end.

It’s not too hard to tell which is Greg’s favorite color. The section spreads out from the second column on the left, roll after roll of heavy silk in lemon, flaxen, tuscany, adorned with every imaginable kind of pattern. Chasten resolves to buy himself something yellow that Greg will like, before turning over the words he’s about to say one last time.

“Hey,” he says, glancing up as casually as he can fake. “I just realized, I forgot my suit jacket at home.” He pauses, bites his lip in the way he knows men tend to find cute. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”

Greg leans in close and for a second Chasten thinks he’s going in for a kiss, but instead he reaches past him and into the drawer. His hand hovers for a barely-there second before picking up a honey-colored tie with a delicate pattern in hair-thin gold thread. He unrolls it and starts looping it around his neck.

“No, that’s fine. Just take one of mine.”

“Will it fit?”

Greg looks up, but his hands keep working by rote. “Just throw it over your arm if it doesn’t.” He smiles apologetically. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I’m just…” He trails off, adjusts the knot thoughtfully while he searches for words. “Trying to make a good impression with the gallery owner. Playing his game.”

“Sure,” Chasten says, looking helplessly around at the jackets surrounding them. He has no idea where to even begin. Thankfully, Greg’s attention is back on himself in the mirror, adjusting and re-adjusting the knot of the gilded tie.

“I’m new in town,” he says without looking away from his own fingers, pulling the fabric minutely to the left, then almost imperceptibly back to the right. “I still have to prove myself. To everybody.” He looks up and meets Chasten’s eyes over his shoulder in the mirror. His hard expression softens, and his hands drop from his collar. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a long beat while Chasten tries to figure out what to say. In the end, he settles for the thing he really wants to say. “Why?”

Greg looks mildly startled, as if he didn’t plan for the conversation to keep going after his apology. “I don’t know,” he says finally, and Chasten thinks he’s telling the truth. He wonders if Greg will run scared if he lays out his thinking in black and white, so he buys himself time by pointing at one of the closets.

“Which jacket do you want me to take?”

Greg smiles, then takes a step back to assess Chasten’s shirt and slacks. Chasten feels like his eyes linger for an uncomfortably long time at the small faded patches here and there before his attention shifts and he slowly scans across the row of hanging suits.

“We all project images to get what we want,” Chasten says tentatively when Greg’s eyes are off him. “And when I’m with you… I’ll project an image, too. You don’t need to pretend that’s not what’s going on. I understand.” Greg glances back at him at that, and Chasten rushes through the last bit, suddenly self-conscious. “I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t.”

Greg’s hand drops from the blazer sleeve he’s running his fingers appraisingly across, and he turns to face Chasten.

“That’s very...cynical,” he says warily. Chasten shrugs. Greg cracks a small smile when he continues: “And accurate.”

Chasten smiles back. “So,” he says, a little more confident. “Tell me about this Hopper painting we’re projecting an image for.”

“Oh, it’s not a painting,” Greg replies, turning back to the jackets. “Just a sketch for it. But I’ve loved the painting for years.”

“Tell me about it,” Chasten says, equally amused and embarrassed that Greg is expending so much energy finding just the right thousand-dollar jacket to match Chasten’s $22 slacks from Target.

“It’s called _Office at Night_ ,” Greg says. He pauses for a moment, whips out his phone, and finds the picture before handing it to Chasten. “You can see why it appeals to me, can’t you?” he asks over his shoulder, zeroing in on a particular jacket. He takes it off its hanger and holds it out in front of him as if to study it closer.

Chasten peers at the screen. “Sure,” he says, but it’s only barely not a question. “It’s...interesting.”

“It’s me.”

Chasten looks up in surprise, but takes the blazer Greg is now holding out for him, and then looks closer at the picture. Greg takes a step in, stands next to Chasten. 

“A stiff middle-aged man stuck at work late at night. He doesn’t even notice the open window. And apparently the only person who really cares is his secretary.” He takes the phone from Chasten but keeps holding it so they both can see. His breath is warm on Chasten’s neck. “Nobody does loneliness like Hopper. See the awkward perspective? The light stretching out?”

Chasten looks at Greg, sees the focused glow in his gaze directed at the painting. He’s transported, and Chasten isn’t sure whether to be charmed or jealous. “I see.”

Greg glances at him, then back at the picture. “It’s okay if you don’t.”

“No. I do.” He pauses. “If he’s so lonely, why do you want a sketch of him?”

Greg smiles wryly, and Chasten notes how studied the expression looks, and how far from smiling his eyes are. “Because I don’t want to turn into him,” Greg says, tucking his phone back in his pocket. “I took the first step, getting out of New York, and I just… I want a reminder I should keep going.” He looks down at the plush carpeting. Chasten melts at the sudden streak of vulnerability.

“Until you find someone who cares that you’re at work?” he ventures gently. 

There’s a sudden, strange frisson in the air. Then Greg kisses Chasten, nudging him backwards. The tie drawer slides smoothly and noiselessly shut as he’s pushed up against it, and he feels the long brushed-steel handle pressing against the small of his back. Jacket sleeves brush the back of his head, soft and yielding. Greg is direct, assertive, self-assured. He’s kind of surprised it’s taken this long for that energy to emerge between the two of them. He closes his eyes, feels a sudden hot churn inside. He can smell leather and cologne, and if he’d move any further back he might be suffocated by the fabric. Finally, satisfied, Greg pulls back. He’s smiling with his eyes, now, too.

“Do you want to borrow a tie?”

Chasten opens his eyes. He hesitates. They’re both breathing heavy. He doesn’t answer.

“It’s up to you,” Greg adds, leaving _but you should_ unspoken.

Chasten waits a beat too long before saying yes.

*

Chasten has been to gallery openings and exhibitions before: the peril of befriending art students. It’s always a cavernous white space, chosen for the light and not so much for indoor heating or bathroom facilities, cheap wine by the box poured into 40 cent plastic champagne flutes and Ritz crackers laid out in rows on a tray if the art student in question is feeling fancy. 

This is… Not that. This is all expensive suits and tailored cocktail dresses and a small battalion of waiters weaving in and out of the crowd delivering bespoke drink orders and proffering trays of fancy hors d'oeuvres.

Greg is so happy, so transported, studying the art that Chasten rests a hand on his arm, hoping that touching his sleeve might pass along the passion. He’s taking the last sip of a red wine that Greg ordered for them both when he suddenly feels the arm go rigid under his fingertips.

“Shit,” Greg mutters with feeling.

“What?”

Greg half-turns into Chasten and hesitates for a second before answering. “I see an old...acquaintance.”

“Really?” Chasten perks up with interest and tries to tamp it down.

He looks in the direction Greg was looking a second ago and sees a couple whose attention is less on their conversation partners than on the back of Greg’s head. She’s a bombshell and knows it, all curves and blonde hair falling over her shoulders. He is a good four inches shorter than her, a mop of curly black hair framing his face and giving him a boyish unruly look. They’re both gorgeous.

“You can judge for yourself,” Greg says. “His family owns a gallery in New York and he’s bought a lot of work for me. It’s just…” He trails off as the couple wraps up their conversation across the room and start making their way over. 

“Just what?”

Greg sighs. “He enjoys reminding me of my shortcomings.” He shrugs helplessly. “That’s all.”

Chasten forces away a frown, watching as the couple stop to greet someone on the way over. When Greg said ‘acquaintance’ in that tone of voice he’d assumed ‘ex’, but maybe not. He smiles confidently. He knows a thing or two about bullies. “I bet I can handle him.”

Greg grimaces slightly, suddenly apprehensive. “I don’t know if --”

“Well, well, well,” the black-haired man says as they finally approach, fake joviality billowing towards Greg and Chasten. “So the banking heir is interested in art again.”

“Because he was never disinterested,” Greg says. “Ward,” he adds in a belated greeting, smirking as he shakes the man’s hand. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Well, once in a while it’s always worth traveling to the hinterlands. You never know when you’ll find a diamond in the rough, right?” Ward smiles. He looks Chasten up and down appraisingly. “Introductions?”

“Of course. This is my...date, Chasten Glezman,” Greg flusters over the nomenclature and Chasten’s heart constricts with how adorable he is. “Chasten, this is my college roommate, Edward Rohm Hillier. Though I believe the only time you use your full name is when you’re cashing checks from the trust fund, correct?”

Chasten takes a double-take that Greg didn’t lead with this information, but Ward’s shaking his hand already and there’s no time to process.

“That’s correct, Gregory,” he says, smiling slyly. “It’s Ward. Chasten, so lovely to meet you. Julia, you’ve met Greg; he’s Kimberly’s little brother. Chasten, this is Julia Johnson. She’s…” He looks at her, an amused smile playing on his lips. “How _would_ you define yourself in relation to me?”

She smiles. “In a professional setting? Strictly your favorite Sotheby’s contact, and that’s _all_.”

Ward smiles fondly at her and pinches her arm; she giggles. Greg glances uncomfortably around the gallery. Chasten has two epiphanies in quick succession. One, Julia looks like an artist’s rendering of a female Greg. Two, he remembers from where he knows Ward’s name. “You gave Greg the book,” he says.

Ward’s attention is still mostly on Julia’s bouncing blonde curls. “Hmm,” he says distractedly, index finger twining into a wayward lock of hair.

“The coffee table book about the artist. Tamara...something.”

“Oh!” Ward perks up, dropping his hand from Julia’s hair. “Yes! Tamara de Lempicka. She’s an underappreciated figure.”

He shouldn’t be pushing, especially when Greg is uncomfortably attempting not to fidget next to him, but he’s asked so many questions over the last few weeks that Greg has somehow ducked out of answering, and this is too good a shot.

“So Greg’s a fan of her work?” he asks, and Ward grins.

“He’s been a great fan, yes.”

“I don’t know if I’d say _great fan_ ,” Greg interjects, “but there are...aspects of her output I’ve enjoyed over the years.”

This is new. Chasten turns his head to look at Greg, tries to tailor his smile to be gently supportive.

“Oh, I love to hear bankers’ art opinions. They’re adorable,” Ward says.

Chasten blinks. “I don’t know if I’d consider the opinion of someone who has an art history minor from Columbia _adorable_ ,” he says pointedly.

“Someone who’s been trading in art since he was thirteen might,” Ward counters. His smile doesn’t waver, doesn’t turn mean, and Chasten wonders if this guy really just is unaware of how he comes across. “Please, go ahead, Gregory. I’d love to hear the answer to Chasten’s excellent, excellent question,” he titters, eyes sparkling with amusement.

Chasten can hear Greg swallow beside him, and suddenly realizes what a shitty position he’s put him in. He casts his eyes down. Greg’s grip is tightening on his glass, and Chasten wonders for a breathless minute if he won’t be able to rise to Ward’s challenge. Then, just when Chasten is about to jump in to try to save him, Greg speaks, slow and measured.

“I enjoyed how talented she was at putting a shiny mask on a decadent and self-destructive society,” he says, and Chasten looks up just in time to see him meeting Ward’s gaze head-on.

He returns it without a waver. “Ah, yes. Ever the moralist stick-in-the-mud.” Ward leans in toward Chasten, lowers his voice and stage-whispers confidentially: “This is all a bit of an inside joke. Greg passed up a chance to own a Lempicka once.” He looks at Greg with great meaning. “I don’t intend on letting him forget it.”

“Clearly,” Greg says drily, posture still ramrod-straight.

“Oh, lighten up, Gregory; we’re all friends here. Another one of those, Chasten?” he says, flagging down a waiter. He nods towards Chasten’s near-empty wine glass.

“Yes, please.”

Ward passes out glasses to all of them, and Chasten hates him for the possessive gesture. As if anyone couldn’t just ask a waiter for a drink. They’re quiet for a moment as they all take a first sip. Ward is the first to swallow back. 

“You know, Lempicka had a fascinating biography. She was a wealthy socialite, yes, but she was also a great artist. She kept a foot in both worlds. It’s rare to find a person who can manage that.”

“Yes,” Greg says. “And if I remember correctly, she also couldn’t adapt to changing tastes, had a crippling cocaine addiction, and was constantly sleeping with men and women she wasn’t married to. But - ” He pauses artfully. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“Well,” Ward says on an exhale. “Nobody’s perfect. Right, Chasten?” He smiles conspiratorially at him.

“I suppose not,” Chasten says, because he’s not sure how else to respond. He suddenly feels a wave of insecurity, and he’s keenly aware of Ward looking him over.

“Although now that I think about it…” Ward adds thoughtfully. “I hope you are. It’s no secret Greg’s been through the wringer.”

Chasten glances at Greg, alarmed. He remembers the little coil of doubt that has been threatening to tip over and unspool. Greg’s features tighten further. “Ward, I don’t know if -” he says, but Ward ignores him.

“Just between us,” he says, leaning in further towards Chasten, “the last relationship he was in, the guy was an unalloyed piece of shit. An emotionally manipulative bastard.” Chasten glances from Ward to Julia to Greg, but is drawn back to Ward’s hypnotic intimacy. “You wouldn’t believe the kinds of stunts he’d pull for attention. Greg’s friends and family in New York were all very worried for him.”

Chasten glances at Greg, worried now. Greg’s jaw is tightly clenched, but his voice is calm. “That’s not entirely true,” he says. 

“But of course Greg over here will never tell you himself; he’s very private; so I’m taking the liberty. Just - be good to him. He deserves it.” Ward’s face blossoms into the most radiant smile, and for a second Chasten is convinced Greg must have been in love with him in college. Who wouldn’t have been? “I know you will be.”

Julia interrupts what feels precariously like a blessing from Ward, and Chasten can’t quite tell if she’s being tactless or if she’s doing them all a favor by changing the subject.

“I dream of experiencing another Holloway wedding at the Knickerbocker,” she says. “I still think about Kim’s. Greg, remember the afterparty?” She looks at Chasten. “Ward hired waitresses and we ate oysters off them.” She stops. “Legally, I don’t think the girls were supposed to be nude,” she adds thoughtfully.

Greg takes a breath to provide an explanation; Ward pre-empts him. 

“Probably not. You know, it’s funny you mention that, because I actually got that idea from Lempicka.”

Greg mumbles into his drink. “Imagine that.”

“But yes,” Ward continues. “We all want to see your wedding. Truly we do. Especially if you marry someone with artistic taste, like Chasten here.” Chasten feels touched for a moment, then Ward continues. “Because once you settle down and buy a big old house in the suburbs, you’ll have _acres_ of walls to fill up with art. Your business alone will keep me solvent for another fifty years.” He laughs and raises his glass in a toast, and Chasten can only marvel at what a complete fucking prick this guy is.

He genuinely, despite everything, hasn’t really considered what being married to Greg might look like. _Acres of walls_. He pinches his lips and looks down into his glass.

“I - ” Greg finishes his wine and takes a deep breath. “Well,” he says, pasting on a pleasant smile. “I think we all agree, this has been quite the exhibition.”

“Indeed,” Ward says. He’s about to say something more but is distracted by something he spies over Greg’s shoulder. “Say, you’ll forgive me, Greg; you always do; but Erin McCarthy is over there and I should pay my respects. Also I need to put an inquiry in for the Hopper; I have a client back home who’s very interested.”

Chasten looks up to see Greg’s smile pale and fade, but Ward either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“But it’s been fantastic catching up. Next time you’re in New York, you and I should grab a drink. Julia can join us. What do you say?” He reaches out for a handshake, but Greg doesn’t take his hand. Ward quirks a smile. “Stay out of trouble,” he says with a nod. 

“I always do,” Greg replies. 

Greg and Chasten both half-turn to watch Ward and Julia leave. For a moment the sound of the crowd seems to echo between them. There’s polite chatter and laughter and clinking crystal, completely unaware and unaffected by the battle just fought. “I’m not having a drink with that jackass in New York,” Greg says eventually, eyes still glued to the back of Ward’s head.

Chasten doesn’t know what to say, so he just keeps watching. After a beat, Greg turns to him. “Will _you_ have a drink with me in New York?” 

Chasten looks at him, laughs. “Sure,” he says breezily. “Let me fire up my private jet.”

Greg smiles, eyes sparkling with laughter. “I was thinking we could fly commercial, just this once. Do you have any time off this week?” 

Chasten feels his smile drop. “You’re serious?”

Greg nods. “Twenty-four hours in New York. A little adventure. Dinner. Broadway.”

“I’m…” Chasten blinks. “I’m off the day after tomorrow.”

Greg grins. “Then I’ll pick you up after work tomorrow.”


	6. Chapter 6

He looks himself in the mirror, straight in the eyes. This O’Hare bathroom is large and square, and he’s alone in it. To his left and to his right stretches a row of sleek faucets, each one a shallow sparkling arch reflecting in the glass. On the corner of the counter is a regal purple orchid.

He has finished washing his hands, and drying them, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he studies his own gaze, feeling as if there is something in it to understand. When the realization hits him, it hits suddenly: he looks _happy_. He looks happy for the first time in a long time. All he has to do is open that heavy door and stride through a private United lounge, and there waiting for him will be a beautiful man who adores him and who whisks him away for impulsive New York vacations. A man who lets him escape everything in his life that is hopelessly small and claustrophobic.

 _Acres of walls_ , he remembers involuntarily. He tosses the crumpled paper towel into the trash, along with the implications of the memory, and leaves the shiny, empty room.

He can’t even feel his feet hit the ground as he passes the concierge and the workstations and the complimentary buffet. The airline agents and buffet attendants keep their distance, nodding their heads in his general direction but otherwise averting their eyes. He doesn’t look at them. His eyes are fixed on Greg, sitting with his back to the dark tarmac. He’s on a call, of course - he always is - but he’s looking up, watching Chasten wind his way back.

As Chasten gets closer, he gestures from Greg’s eyes to his own. There’s an implied message: _Keep your eyes on me._ Greg’s smile broadens, and Chasten’s pulse quickens at being seen. And as Chasten starts walking around his lounge seat, slowly, Greg’s eyes stay locked on his. He doesn’t stop circling, even when Greg has to crane his neck, chin tipped back, to keep his unspoken promise. He doesn’t miss a beat carrying on his conversation.

Chasten can’t make much sense of what he’s saying - he’s getting used to not understanding these calls - so instead of following the conversation, he finds himself focusing on the sculpted face, the proud expression, the fair cheeks tinted a light rose at the apples. Even his chin, Chasten sees from this angle, is built with a firm, aristocratic delicacy.

Greg’s tone of voice has changed. “I trust you,” he says, and it sounds as if the words have been meaning to burst out of him for a long time. “Yes, really,” he insists. “Figure it out. I’ve got to go.” Chasten smooths his palm over fine golden hair, and enjoys watching Greg’s shoulders relax beneath the affection. “I’m….” Greg latches onto a lie, smiling. “Headed into a long meeting. I’m wooing an overleveraged competitor. In secret.” Chasten smiles, too. There’s a question on the other end. “Very preliminary,” Greg says, “but...forward merger? If the numbers hold out.” His tone stays sober even as his eyes sparkle with mischief. “Mmhm. I’ll keep you posted,” he says, and before the voice on the other end can say anything else, he ends the call.

Chasten sits down beside him. “Good work.”

“Good work what?” he says, amused.

“Good work not working.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

After a few minutes of smiling, they both realize that they’re lost in study of the other, and they both laugh at that.

“So.” Chasten reaches out and touches his elbow briefly, playfully. “Is that how financiers roleplay?”

“Mm?”

“You just compared me to an overleveraged company.” Greg’s smile falters a little, and he glances away. Chasten feels a prick of alarm. “I mean, it’s fine,” he says, quickly. “It’s just funny, that’s all.”

Greg shifts in his seat. “Yeah, I guess…” He doesn’t finish. _I guess I did._

“It’s fine.”

Greg looks back up at him. He’s so deeply sincere. “I’m sorry.”

There’s an uncomfortable quiet that Chasten is anxious to break. He crosses his ankles, lets the corners of his eyes soften, makes his tone light and teasing. Ironic. “But if I _was_ a company...” he says. He pauses a moment, smiles in the silence. “What would be your opening offer, Mr. Holloway?”

Greg leans back. He’s not a man given to nervous gestures, but he starts fidgeting with his phone. “I’m not _buying_ you, Chasten,” he says, and just beneath the surface is a tone of quiet chiding.

Chasten persists. “But what if I’d be open to acquisition?”

It’s a risk, finding a mutual insecurity and flirting over it. He’s well aware that the safer route would be to change topics entirely. But he’s suddenly, desperately interested in the answer. He watches Greg take a moment, long fingers turning over his phone as he thinks. A boarding announcement crackles over the PA.

“Luxury,” Greg finally says. “And…” Chasten watches him waver. There’s a plunge he seems hesitant to take. But in the end he takes it. “Exclusivity. Me only seeing you. Peace of mind for you, that there’s no one else.” He looks up. “That you can trust me.”

Chasten stares. He swallows. He wasn’t expecting that, or the intensity of it, or how simultaneously alluring and alarming the prospect sounds.

Greg glances down again and twists his watch. “That was a very hypothetical - ”

Chasten finds himself interrupting. “How would you prove I could trust you?” he asks. Then, before he knows what he’s saying, he says, “I’ve had a lot of boyfriends who couldn’t prove it. Because they were liars.”

Greg looks up. Chasten can see that he’s surprised he wasn’t rejected outright. “I don’t…” Greg says. They teeter on the edge of something. Then: “My phone,” he realizes. “You could look at it whenever you wanted. No questions asked.” He hands it over. “Here.”

Without hesitation, Greg unlocks the phone and hands it over, and Chasten’s fingers close around the curved edges of the glass. He looks at Greg, asking an unspoken question: _Really?_ Greg nods.

As soon as Chasten starts scrolling, he feels as if he’s been locked away in a tiny room. He sees endless, constantly updated text chains peppered with abbreviations he doesn’t understand, and a series of disappointed obscenities that he does. Curated Twitter lists, all full of meaningless arguments between analysts and lawyers and brokers. A dozen alarms set at three minute increments starting at 3:45 in the morning. Notifications from apps about numbers going down. Notifications from apps about numbers going up. A photo gallery made of spreadsheet screenshots and only the occasional sunrise. An unanswered email from Kim: _go fuck yourself go fuck yourself go fuck yourself_ with a follow-up a few minutes later: _what’s the best client restaurant near the Langham?_

He hands the phone back. “You work too much,” he says.

A bevy of emotions plays across Greg’s face: he’s somehow simultaneously wry, sheepish, sad, proud, despairing. “I know,” he finally says, to sum them all up. “That’s why I need you.”

 _I need you_. Chasten feels the words spark a quick smile, but that smile fades as he sinks further into thought. “I think…” he says. He realizes the idea fully only as he says the words. “I think I should accept your offer.” He looks up, surprised. He hasn’t expected to feel this.

“Chasten,” Greg says. “Don’t - ”

But with every heartbeat, each one growing faster, he becomes more convinced. “It would be stupid to not say yes,” he says. “Right? Because you have everything.”

Greg’s eyes flicker toward his lips. His tone takes on a faintly scolding quality, but his breathlessness negates the impact. “We aren’t businesses. And you’re young, and it’s early. And I don’t want to push you into - ”

“But,” Chasten says, and the syllable silences him. Chasten sees his own skittishness - eagerness - desire - terror, all reflected in that radiant sculpted face, and he feels closer to him than he ever has before. He can’t let this moment vanish. “How about leaving your offer on the table? Until I know?”

Greg hesitates.

“You want to,” Chasten presses. “You want me.”

A moment of silent struggle. Greg doesn’t deny it. With every second that passes, Chasten feels the warmth beneath his breastbone spreading. His breath goes faster, shallower. _You need someone who needs you_ , he realizes. He has never realized this before.

Greg swallows, finally. He can’t look Chasten in the eye yet. “How long would you…” He searches for the right words. “How long would you want me to keep the offer on the table?”

Chasten takes a minute too, thinking. _Be honest_ , he realizes. _Be completely honest_. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But not forever.”

Greg nods. He blinks a few times, looking down at the carpet. “Well,” he finally relents, and Chasten’s shallow breath stops altogether. “You have everything. It would be stupid to not say yes.”

Finally, for the first time since the subject was broached, they look at each other and don’t look away. There is a warm poignancy to Greg’s expression, and his slow smile is dazed.

Chasten realizes a thin sheen of sweat has broken out across his skin. Tentatively, he extends his hand. It feels oddly like closing a business deal, and that feels right. “To keeping it on the table,” he says.

“To keeping it,” Greg says, and he reaches out, too.

After they shake, Chasten makes a motion to take his hand back. But Greg doesn’t let it go, and they walk to their gate arm-in-arm.

*

The next morning, after a few hours of sleep in a sparkling suite, they clamber out the revolving door of the hotel lobby together and into the back of a town car, headed to Battery Park. That’s when Greg’s phone rings.

He pulls it out of his pocket and is about to turn it off when he sees who it is. “Dammit, it’s Kim. I have to take this. Sorry,” he says, in the same breath as he says ‘hello’ to his sister.

Chasten looks at him, suddenly transformed from relaxed and soft to pinched and tight-shouldered. He tries to make sense of the conversation from the half he can hear.

“How do you know I’m in New York?”

His face falls when he hears her reply.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Kim… No. I’m taking the day. I’m showing Chasten the city.”

Chasten smiles that Greg would talk about him like Kim knows him. He tries to catch Greg’s eye to share the smile, but Greg doesn’t see him.

“Chasten. We’ve been dating a few weeks. Fuck you.”

“What could you possibly need me to come in for? On. My. Day. Off?”

Finally, he sighs. “Fifteen minutes. I am setting a timer the second I walk through the door.”

“I’m sorry,” he says to Chasten. He shoves the phone back into his pocket. “I have to stop by the offices for a few minutes. I’ll show you where you can get good coffee while you wait. 47th and Park, please,” he adds, and the driver nods and changes lanes.

“Can I come?” Chasten asks.

Greg frowns and Chasten wonders if he misstepped somehow. “Why? It’s just a boring office.”

Chasten shrugs. “But it’s your office.”

Greg smiles then, like it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever heard. ( _Maybe it is_ , Chasten realizes.) Greg reaches out and traces his fingers down Chasten’s cheek. His heart melts, even as it hammers. “Sure,” Greg says. “Please do.”

*

Holloway Capital’s headquarters are encased in steel and glass, like everything else in Manhattan. Chasten tries hard to act blasé and worldly at the windows stretching towards the sky, but knows he’s failing miserably.

Greg doesn't notice. He hurries toward the door. His shoulders haven’t relaxed, and his lips are pressed tightly together. When the elevator doors close behind them he blurts out, like he’s been waiting to say it: “Kim can be a little crass. Just ignore her, okay?”

Chasten raises an eyebrow. “Crass how?”

“Her job is her life.” Greg takes a beat, smiles wryly. “So, like me. But she’s...obnoxious about it in a way I’d like to think I’m not.” Another beat. “Do not comment on that, please.”

Chasten knows he shouldn’t laugh, and he bites the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t. “I won’t.”

He’s not sure what exactly he expected, but the fifty-second floor is exactly like any other office building he’s ever seen, with dark carpet, harsh light, and white walls hung with abstract art. He smiles politely as Greg points out the offices of people he doesn’t know, who all avoid direct eye contact and nod in tribute. He ends with the corner office that used to be his, but is now inhabited by a young man who looks eerily like Greg must have at Chasten’s age.

“That’s my brother Danny,” Greg says as they watch the younger Greg type intently.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Chasten replies. He’s simultaneously confused and taken with the look of the guy.

“Yeah, he’s…” Greg, always at such pains to be precise, trails off in a way he doesn’t usually. “I don’t know, he’s a lot younger than Kim and me. He’s not really… A part of the business. The way we are. Anyway,” he shrugs. His voice gets quieter and more focused. “He spends just enough hours a day here to make it seem like this is something he cares about and then he fucks off to go to parties with his fiancée.”

Chasten starts at Greg’s bitter tone, but doesn’t get a chance to ask anything more, because a loud voice cuts through the soft chatter of the hallways.

“The prodigal son returns,” a tall blonde in a black dress with an asymmetric neckline proclaims, walking towards them.

“How prodigal am I when I was sent to Chicago, really?” Greg counters sourly, but he leans in and dutifully kisses his sister’s cheek anyway.

“Chasten, this is my _darling_ sister Kimberly. Kim, this is Chasten.”

Kim smiles. Chasten is immediately reminded of a feline predator. She extends a hand and he shakes it carefully.

“Good to meet you, Chasten.” She pronounces the name slowly, with precision. “I hope you’ll excuse us quickly,” she says, eyes flitting away from Chasten almost immediately. He has been summarily dismissed. “Annie,” she adds in the direction of the woman sitting at the front desk. “Will you make sure Mr. Holloway’s guest is comfortable for the next little while?”

Annie stands immediately and approaches them with an anodyne smile.

“We’re in my office,” Kim says to Greg, turning on her high heel and clearly expecting him to follow.

“Thirteen minutes thirty seconds,” he says, smiling and arching his brows towards Chasten as he starts following her across the lobby and into another row of offices.

“How _old_ is he?” Chasten hears Kim ask Greg when he catches up to her. 

“Shut up,” Greg replies.

“Can I get you anything, sir?” Annie chirps brightly, and Chasten starts again. “Coffee, tea, water, something to eat?” She’s still smiling. “We can get whatever you want here.”

“Oh,” he says, mind suddenly and embarrassingly blank. “I’m okay, thank you.”

She watches him for a moment longer, and he feels acutely uncomfortable that it’s her job to make him comfortable.

He gives in. “Coffee would be good,” he offers weakly.

“Of course, sir. Feel free to have a seat -- ” she indicates the lounge area by the front desk “ -- and I’ll be right back.”

He sits as far away from the front desk as possible and spends the next ten minutes trying to be inconspicuous for fear that Annie will take a stray look as a sign he wants something. He drinks his coffee slowly, glancing around the few offices he can see. Danny is still typing away, and Chasten wonders why he isn’t in the meeting in Kim’s office, and what, exactly, it means that he’s “not really a part of the business.”

“Kim.” He suddenly hears Greg’s voice from around the corner. “Why do I have a text from Mom instructing me to appear at dinner tonight?”

There’s no reply, and Greg speaks again, his voice straining against its polite volume. “Kim, did you by any chance tell Mom I’m in town?”

Kim scoffs. “We’re not kids; it’s not _telling_ on you to let her know you’re here.” She powers through Greg’s faint ‘Jesus’. “Just come to dinner, bring the boy, it’ll be fine.”

“No,” Greg says, fury faint but growing by the syllable. “We have tickets back to Chicago this afternoon.”

“Re-book them,” Kim replies. “Or better yet, take the jet back. That’ll impress him.”

“I’m _not_ taking Chasten to dinner at the house,” Greg says flatly, and Chasten’s stomach drops at the finality he hears. Greg sighs. “I like him, Kim. I like him a lot.” Chasten’s stomach perks up again. “And he likes me, I’m pretty sure. I’d like him to keep liking me, but if I take him to Holloway Friday dinner, he’s never returning another phone call from me.”

Kim sighs ostentatiously. “Jesus, fine, don’t bring him. Give him your AmEx and let him loose on Fifth while we eat.”

Greg barks a single, disbelieving laugh. “Could you make him sound a little more _Pretty Woman_?”

“Could _you_ be a little more dramatic? Could you inhabit the cliché just a _little_ bit better? God, Greg, there’s a Barnes & Noble on Fifth, if that’s high-minded enough for you and your very young boyfriend, you absolute fucking asshat.” 

“Why is it so important to you that I go to dinner tonight?” There’s a pause, and Chasten can imagine how Greg narrows his eyes at his sister, not even bothering to correct her on the ‘boyfriend’ terminology. “What bad news is coming up that you need me there to defuse?” His voice goes saccharine with faux intimacy. “Did you start a coup without telling me?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Kim barks. There’s a long, sharp-edged quiet. “Eddie’s quitting,” she admits finally, so softly that Chasten can barely hear her. He frowns, absolutely sure he’s heard the name before but unable to place it.

“Really?” It sounds like Greg is smiling now, which appears to annoy Kim. 

“Don’t,” she warns. “Some friends of ours are setting up a VC fund and they want him. I can’t in good conscience tell him not to do it.” 

“Really?” Greg sounds more skeptical now.

“Come on, Greg, we’re not a fucking royal family. It can’t be like ‘marry me and be chained to the family business forever’.”

“Do me a favor and don’t use those words with Mom,” Greg says.

“Please, Greg.”

Greg sighs, and Chasten pictures his calculating grimace.

“Fine. I’ll be there. But you fucking owe me.”

Chasten can tell the exact moment Greg realizes he’s overheard the whole thing. He rounds the corner and his face falls at the sight of Chasten on the nearest sofa. “Fuck,” he says, resigned.

“It’s okay,” Chasten replies.

They don’t talk on the way down. But as the elevator passes the twentieth floor, Chasten takes Greg’s hand and doesn’t let it go. When they’ve stepped out into the street, he stops on the sidewalk. His mind is made up. “I’ll go with you if you want,” he offers. “I don’t mind.”

There’s the sounds of traffic and taxi horns. They stand there on the gray pavement, studying the other’s face. “I can’t ask you to do that,” Greg says.

“You’re not. I’m offering.”

He looks torn, but eventually nods, his tight shoulders finally sagging slightly. “Okay.” He smiles a flicker of a smile at Chasten. “But,” he adds, “I don’t want to think about that for another -- ” He looks at his watch. “ -- nine hours. Let’s go have your New York adventure.”

Chasten laughs and Greg starts up the street, pulling him by the hand. Greg laughs then, too, but right away Chasten can see the joy isn’t reaching his eyes.

*

Spring dusk has fallen over the city, casting shadows down the sidewalks and cross-streets. Over the course of the afternoon Greg grew increasingly abstracted, and his conversation stiff. Now he's leaning against the town car door, thumb flicking discontent over his phone.

He glances up. “You can let us out here,” he says.

“Just one more block, Mr. - ”

“I said out here, please.” The driver shrugs and the car comes to a stop. His face is flushed. “That okay with you?” he asks Chasten, but it’s perfunctory.

“Sure,” Chasten says.

Greg nods. He slides out the back seat and holds the door open, his eyes fixed on something in the middle distance. They’re near Central Park, and during the drive Chasten has caught glimpses of various consulates, museums, and Hermès and Louis Vuitton storefronts. The car has deposited them on a narrow side street lined with six-story brick and limestone townhouses, with mature trees growing from well-kept circles in the sidewalks. The facades only look modest because the surrounding blocks are bursting with steel towers.

Chasten is both surprised and relieved when Greg’s hand searches out his. They walk together in silence. When they reach the crosswalk, Greg barely glances to either side; he takes it for granted that traffic will stop for him, and it does.

His stride only slows once they reach a red brick townhouse, its second story dominated by a semicircular bay window protruding just slightly over the sidewalk. “This is us,” Greg says.

Chasten nods, and bites his tongue to keep from looking up. Hand in hand, they step up gingerly to the wide front door, tastefully foreboding and inset with decorative rod iron curves.

“My mother is...” Greg says, pressing the doorbell, but he sighs and doesn’t finish the thought.

Chasten gives him the courtesy of not looking at him. “Whatever they say tonight,” he says, eyes fixed on the iron, “it won’t change anything about us.” He glances over just barely in time to catch Greg's reluctant twinge of a smile. That smile makes him feel braver. “Everyone in my family is always fighting each other,” he says. “Did I ever tell you about the time my parents almost brought each other to court?”

“Well,” Greg says. “What’s the old Tolstoy quote? ‘Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’?” and before Chasten can answer, the door opens to reveal the woman who is, without a doubt, Greg’s mother. She has his trim figure and patrician posture, with added steeliness supplied by pearl gray hair and a dark matte lipstick. Her ivory sheath dress has hundreds of tiny beads sewn discreetly into the tailored shoulders, and as she moves beneath the light of her entryway chandelier, she shimmers.

“Gregory. Darling.” She takes his hands, pulls him to her. “It’s been too long.”

“It’s been a while,” he says.

She rests a hand on his shoulder, then closes her manicured fingers tight over it, like she’s trying to maneuver a mannequin. She looks at Chasten. “Kim mentioned that you were bringing your boyfriend.” She doesn’t give either of them space to push back on the word. “So this is him?”

“Of course it’s him.”

“Don’t be offended,” she says, offended. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”

The three of them stand there for a moment on the stoop. She’s waiting for something, and Greg is too sullen to realize it. Finally, she gives up on Greg and turns to Chasten directly. “So do you have a name?”

“Chasten,” Greg says before he can answer. “Chasten Glezman. Chasten, this is my mother, Andrea. She’s the Holloway CEO.”

When she shakes his hand, her grip grasps his very bones. “CEO of the firm or the family?” he asks, pumping back as gregariously as he knows how. She laughs at the joke, and doesn’t answer the question.

“Lovely to meet you, Chasten. Please, both of you. Come in.”

They step inside the silent entry hall, dominated by a cold marble staircase ascending into the tall white ceiling. The two Holloways start climbing it without a second thought, and Chasten follows. _Don’t look around,_ he tells himself, _don’t look_ , and he digs his fingernails into his palm.

“We’ll be in the drawing room,” she says at the top of the stairs, gesturing through an archway. Greg’s already taking his coat off. Andrea glances back at Chasten, smiling again. “May I take yours?” There is something about the question that isn’t a question at all, and so he shrugs uncomfortably out of it and bites his lip, remembering all the times he’s wished he’d have it cleaned. He wonders if he’s imagining her glancing at the label in the neck before resting it limp over her arm. “Please,” she says. “Sit down wherever you like. There are plenty of seats for visitors.” The corner of her mouth lifts in a crooked smile. “Our home is yours.”

Greg trots down the single step into the sunken drawing room. Chasten follows, feeling adrift; he sees a high-backed leather chair and sits down in it as if he’s found a life raft. Kim is behind a lacquered wooden bar and mixing a drink. Danny is stretched out on a camel-colored sofa, legs dangling rebelliously over the arm. Greg leans back against the mantel, holding his own elbows at first, then pushing his hands down into his pockets. The tall white walls are lined with portraits, and the curving windows in the bay are dressed in silk.

“How’s Siberia?” Danny asks. He doesn’t look up from his phone.

“Profitable,” Greg says. “How’s the crypto market?”

Danny shifts positions. He shrugs. “Good for laughs.”

“That fucker bought me a million dogecoins for my birthday,” Kim says. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with a million dogecoins?”

Danny’s distracted. “Buy low, sell high, I hear.” He finishes some kind of transaction on his phone and glances up. “Hi, Chasten. Great to meet you.” He nods in seemingly genuine regard, then returns to his phone. “It was a joke, Kim,” he says, talking louder so he doesn’t have to turn around to be heard. “You know what a joke is?”

“You?” She tips back her drink.

“Seriously,” Danny says. He takes in the reactions of the room. “Jokes aside, we do all agree that cryptocurrency is the future, right?”

Kim pours a second shot. “You," she says acidly, "are a sentient shitpost.”

“And you’re lucky as hell you’re too young to make the decisions around here,” Greg says. Chasten looks up. Criticizing Danny's maturity feels like a roundabout insult. Greg looks down, face red.

Before he can answer, they hear Andrea’s heels on the limestone floor. “Does anyone want drinks?” She takes a step down into the room. “I see Kimberly already found some. We can always count on you to play bartender, dear.”

“Oh, I’m not playing,” Kim says. “I know what’s next.”

Danny laughs. “Oh, _shit_. The art tour.” He tosses a sympathetic glance at Chasten. “Just pretend you’re interested. It’ll be fine.”

Chasten hopes he’s gone invisible, but Andrea ignores her family and looks directly at him. “Are you interested in art, Chasten?” she asks. “If Greg’s interested in you, you must be.”

“I’m - ” He thinks fast. “I’m very interested in the arts. I’m a theater teacher.”

“Oh, that’s _lovely_ ,” she says, smiling again. He feels a rush of pride, but it isn’t until a few beats later that he wonders if she’s being sardonic. She crosses the room and touches his upper arm. He’s compelled to stand and follow.

They amble together around the room's perimeter, looking at the collection of painted faces. He keeps hoping Greg will appear at his elbow to offer some passionate observation about light quality, but the only movement he makes is to accept a glass of amber liquid that Kim wordlessly hands him. Andrea describes the achievements of every man hanging on the wall, and the accomplishments of every woman. The descriptors blur past. New York, Paris, London. 1910, 1890, 1865. Friends with Edith Wharton, Henry James, the Vanderbilts.

Kim echoes the thought he is trying so desperately to suppress: “You're verging on parody, Mom.”

Andrea protests. “He said he was interested in art.” But he sees through her. This isn’t about art; it’s about intimidation and image. He judges her sullenly, but then he suddenly, involuntarily remembers being in Greg’s closet, surrounded by suit jackets, talking with a blithe and easy confidence. _We all project images to get what we want_. _I understand. I wouldn’t have come back if I didn't._ He swallows and looks at Greg. They make eye contact for the first time since they crossed the threshold.

“We all go to Gregory for art advice,” Andrea is saying. “Has he told you he has an art minor from Columbia? Or was he too modest to say anything?”

“He did mention it, yes,” he hears himself say. He keeps his eyes on Greg. It strikes him suddenly how natural he looks there, next to the antique wooden carvings winding their way up the fireplace surround.

“On the first date, I bet,” Kim says.

“It’s illegal to bet on sure things,” Danny says.

Chasten smiles. “I was excited to hear it,” he says. “I’m always excited to hear when somebody cares about something,” and, to his relief, Greg smiles back at him.

“Say,” Andrea says. “Speaking of Columbia…” She crosses the room again, and on her way reaches out to run a hand through Danny’s hair as she passes behind the sofa back. “Do you ever hear from your roommate anymore?” Chasten tenses. Kim looks out the bay window and down into the street. The ticking of the clock is suddenly very loud. “You know,” Andrea says. “The oily, inappropriate one?”

Greg hasn’t touched the drink Kim made for him, but he picks it up now. “Occasionally,” he says, and he takes a sip. Andrea’s expression turns expectant. He gives in. “He let me know about a Hopper coming up.”

“Hm.”

“He let you know?” Chasten says. He’s said it before he realized he even has. “But he _bought_ that - ”

Greg shifts his weight. “Yes, I know,” he says, and he sets the drink back down with an air of finality.

Before Chasten can absorb what that might mean, Danny slides his feet off the sofa and shoves his phone into his pocket. He gestures at Kim. She doesn’t need to be asked twice; she immediately starts pouring a drink for him, too. “You know, we all have our own opinions about Ward,” he says as she hands it to him, “but damn, the man knows how to throw a party. I’ve been to a few since you left New York, Greg. Crazy shit.”

Andrea has circled round to Greg’s side now. She reaches up delicately to brush lint off his shoulder. “Thank God you've matured,” she says. “Things could have been so much worse.” She looks pointedly at Danny, but as she lifts her glance it passes over Chasten.

Chasten feels a sudden need to save himself and change the topic. He turns around, searching for a sympathetic painted face. One portrait is set back in a wall recess. The pot light above it has burnt out, and the subjects’ faces are dark. “Who’s in that one?” he asks.

To his surprise, Kim answers. “Us.” She takes another sip of her drink. “God, our clothes look like the eighties fucked 9/11.”

Greg’s voice is tired. “Don’t joke about that.”

“That artist came very highly recommended,” Andrea says.

“That artist made me develop an eating disorder,” Kim says.

Chasten takes a few steps forward, looks at it. Once he’s closer he can make out their features. Kim is standing, her hand resting lightly on the back of a chair, hair frizzier than it is now. A teenage Greg is sitting down. Her expression is frank and direct. His is softer and more reserved. The distrust in it unnerves him.

“Why wasn't I in that one?” Danny asks.

“You were too young,” Andrea says.

“What year was it?”

“‘95.”

“I was six.”

“Well. That’s very young to sit for a portrait. It’s a lot of responsibility for a little boy.” Chasten can feel her eyes at the back of his head. He doesn’t turn to give her the satisfaction of a glance.

“So photography hadn’t reached New York yet?” Danny asked. “If you'd really wanted me in it, the guy could have used a picture of me, I'm just saying.”

Kim is rooting around below the bar for more alcohol. “Well,” she says, “turns out nobody wanted to corral your hyperactive six-year-old ass for a reference photo, _Daniel_.”

“Kimberly.” Andrea’s scold is placid. “Language.”

Chasten turns back around. He makes a point to only look at Greg. “Which one’s your favorite?” he asks.

Greg stands motionless for a moment. He almost looks like a life-sized portrait himself. But finally, reluctantly, he nods to his right. “The one of my grandmother. Nancy Holloway.” There’s a tiny spasm of a smile. “Née Gregory.”

Chasten understands right away. “You’re her namesake?”

Greg softens a little. “Yeah.”

Chasten ignores Andrea’s tight-lipped stare, winds his way around the sofas and the side tables, both to be by Greg and to study what he loves. The painting is of a blonde, blue-eyed woman. Her face looks sculpted, her expression proud, her fair cheeks rose at the apples…

Andrea interrupts. “I can assure you,” she says, “Nancy Gregory has been quite the mother-in-law.”

“Yeah, the first in a long line of stone-cold bitches,” Kim says.

Chasten waits for Andrea to condemn the language. She doesn’t. “When Gregory was born,” she says instead, “Nancy and I were...at odds over how the firm should be run.” She takes a step closer to the portrait and to Chasten. “She didn’t like how I dressed...how I decorated...how I wasn’t from here. How I took her son away from her.” A thoughtful, deliberate pause. “My ideas to reform the firm… We were all navigating deregulation, you know.”

“So she named him Gregory as a peace offering,” Kim says. “He’s the family olive branch. Aren’t you, Greg?”

He quietly finishes his drink. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he finally says.

There’s an awkward silence. Chasten takes a step to be beside him. “For they shall inherit the firm,” he offers as a quiet joke, but the entire room hears it, and Andrea stares.

“Are we sure Greg’s outliving Mom, though?” Danny asks. “Isn’t it _possible_ that she’ll live forever and she’ll pull some legal stunt to inherit our - ”

“Has shutting up _ever_ occurred to you?” Greg snaps, and the force of the words shatters the room into silence.

They’ve barely had time to absorb the shock of his venom before a genial voice comes echoing from the hall. “Come now, Greg,” he says. “Don’t talk that way to your baby brother.”

A man steps down into the drawing room. He’s the missing link between Greg and his grandmother: tall, well-dressed, with fine features and fading hair that must once have been as golden as his son’s. But the spark that Chasten sees in both Greg and in the portrait of his young grandmother is absent entirely.

“So,” the man says. “A big happy family again for the night, hm?” He sees Chasten and shakes his hand. “You must be Greg’s…” He keeps smiling but licks his lips, suddenly apprehensive. “Beau.”

“Really, Dad? _‘Beau’?_ ” Kim says.

He ignores her. “Welcome to New York. Sorry I’m late for the festivities. Andrea here had me putting out a fire with a client.” Andrea pats his chest and says nothing. Chasten can’t tell if the gesture is affectionate or condescending, or both. “Hope you didn’t miss me too much,” he says, kissing her on the cheek.

“No worries, dear,” she smiles. “We’ve only just begun, really.” She pats his shoulder and lightly pushes him off in the direction of the staircase. “Go see where they’re at with dinner.”

As soon as Greg’s father vanishes, Chasten realizes that he doesn’t even know his name.

“Well, isn’t this lovely,” Andrea says when she turns around. Nobody answers.

*

Several leaves from the dining room table have been removed, leaving a too-big room and a snug fit. Chasten trails after Greg, grateful for a chance to sit beside him, but by the time they take their seats, there are only three spots left: two across from each other, and one at the end of the table. Without a word, they split apart and leave the single chair at the end for Kim.

Mr. Holloway has sat down at the table head, Andrea to his left. She smiles demurely, the beads on her shoulders winking under the lights. “So,” she says, draping her napkin in her lap. “I’m told the starter this evening is scallops in citrus broth, and dessert is a chocolate torte.”

“What expertly prepared dead animal is in the middle?” Danny asks. He nearly bumps Chasten in the elbow and murmurs a heartfelt apology.

“And the main course,” she continues, bristling just barely at the interruption, “is venison.” She watches Chasten get settled. “Did you know it’s illegal to sell wild venison in New York?” she asks. She smiles. “The deer have to be domesticated. Apparently it can be quite the struggle sourcing it.”

He withdraws into himself. As the food is served and the dinner plods on, he keeps his eyes on his place setting, on the scallops, the silverware, the stem of the wine glass, the sleeve of a waiter, the brutally red venison. He hears half-hearted laughs, mainly Andrea’s, rarely Greg’s. There is a floral arrangement on a sideboard featuring a trio of lilies, and every few minutes he wonders if he’s tasting their pollen in the back of his throat. He doesn’t remember why he’s here. He looks up. Greg’s elbows are on the table, his fingers fidgeting with his watch as his mother speaks.

Andrea has been expertly attending to the conversation like she’s attending to a dying fire, but eventually it collapses in on itself and the table goes silent. Chasten looks up just in time to catch Greg’s meaningful glance at Kim. She blinks, and nods.

“So,” she says into the silence. “Now that I’ve got some wine in me…”

Chasten can’t understand all of the implications of what’s about to happen, but he feels a fearful, sympathetic pressure in his chest anyway. Greg’s eyes start traveling apprehensively between the two opposite ends of the table.

Andrea notices the change in atmosphere. She takes a sip of wine herself. “That’s quite the preface,” she says before returning to her silverware.

Kim takes a breath, then looks up. Her face has been transformed into granite. “I have some news. Eddie’s leaving.”

“Leaving where?” Andrea asks. “Leaving you?”

Greg winces. Kim doesn’t. “No, Mom,” she says, “he’s not _leaving me_. He’s leaving the firm. Carl and Vanessa are setting up a VC fund, and he’s always wanted - ”

“He is?”

“Yes. He is.”

There’s a silence as Andrea takes a tiny bite of red meat and swallows it. “Have you heard anything about this?” she asks her husband.

“Not yet, dear.”

“Why hasn’t Eddie told me?”

“Because I thought I’d take the bullet for him,” Kim says.

“Well, that was...thoughtful of you.” Andrea cuts her meat, precisely, as the whole table watches. “Do you expect it will be a success?”

Kim is cautious. “Well, the numbers are solid; they’re assembling a great team - ”

“So he’s analyzed the numbers?”

“Yes,” Kim says.

“Who taught him to analyze the numbers?”

“I did.”

“And who taught you to analyze the numbers?”

“Wharton.”

“Who else?”

“You,” Kim says quickly, “and your point?”

“My point,” Andrea says, “is that knowledge is power.” She cuts another piece of meat, swallows it. “Eddie has quite a lot of knowledge about the family; therefore, he has quite a lot of knowledge about the firm; therefore…” She takes a sip of wine. “Eddie has quite a lot of power.”

For the first time there’s a tinge of heat to Kim’s voice. “Do you honestly think that he and I are so asinine that we haven’t talked about that? Extensively?”

Greg clears his throat. “Maybe you and Kim could continue this conversation after dinner,” he offers.

Andrea is incredulous. “Kim and I? Where will you be?”

He takes a bite and pastes on a smile. “I’ll be flying back to Chicago. With Chasten.” He nods toward him but doesn’t look at him, and Chasten’s blood runs cold.

“But this concerns you,” Andrea says. “You’re allowed to take the jet back. If this isn’t business, I don’t know what it is.”

“No.” He's firm. “You and Kim are both fully capable of ironing this out. You don’t need to...ruin this.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what “this” is. Andrea takes a sip, longer this time. Her eyes don’t leave Greg’s face. “You know, it always astonishes me,” she says, setting her glass down, “how this firm and this family gave you everything.” She makes another precise cut, first against the grain, then along it. “And yet you’ve never given us a single thing in return.”

He laughs a little at that, incredulous. “Oh, so my whole life doesn’t count?”

She sets down her silverware. Suddenly she’s negotiating with him, words fast and even. “What they’re doing doesn’t bother you at all? You have no opinions you want to express? Carl and Vanessa are in regular touch with every VP of every serious competitor we have; if Eddie starts talking about our approach or philosophy or client list or succession plan or God knows what else - ” and she lands a glare at Kim.

Greg’s answer is weary: rehearsed, almost. “If we provide services that are valuable, then there’s no reason why any of our clients would - ”

“Stop,” she says suddenly. “You’re not surprised by this.”

Chasten’s heart sinks as Greg’s gaze drops to the cloth napkin on his lap. “Well, after…” He struggles. “What’s all happened between Kim and Eddie in their personal life…”

“Jesus Christ,” Kim mutters, and she stands up to go for the liquor on the sideboard, next to the lilies.

“It doesn’t surprise me he wants...a change of scenery.” He’s helplessly defeated.

“The two of you already discussed this, didn’t you?” Andrea demands. “Behind my back. That’s not how the Holloways do business.”

Kim’s laugh is bitter. “Oh, please. That’s the _only_ way the Holloways do business.”

At that, a new wave of silence breaks across the table. Chasten looks up tentatively at Kim, backed up against the sideboard, drink in hand. When a few moments pass and Andrea doesn’t respond, her posture assumes a tentative bravery.

But then Andrea speaks. “Maybe you’re right,” she says. “Maybe I should start being honest.”

Kim is wary. “About what?”

Andrea smiles, briefly touches the cloth napkin to the corners of her lips. “About Eddie.”

“Mom.”

“You just implied yourself, we shouldn’t keep secrets. Since you’ve clearly know best…” She casually picks up her silverware again. “Maybe I should take your advice.”

“Oh, quit bullshitting,” Kim says, and the sudden honesty of her emotion makes Chasten flinch. “You’re just angry.” She turns her back on the table and finishes her glass.

“Your prenup wasn’t bullshit,” Andrea observes; “Mom,” Greg says under his breath.

Kim turns around. “What?”

“Really?” There’s a hint of impatience to the word. “You never wondered why he agreed to such an unusually generous one? I just assumed you’d figured it all out a long time ago but were just too embarrassed to bring it up.”

“He agreed because he’s a generous man. Because he loved me.”

“Maybe so, but he wanted a very aggressive infidelity clause. He wanted protection from you.”

The table goes still. Chasten can see Kim’s fingers gripping the top edge of the sideboard so tightly they go white.

“Lucky for all of us, I got him to take it out,” Andrea continues, breezy tone betrays the subject matter. “But it took extending an offer of employment. Which, and I know you’d agree, he didn’t particularly deserve. Of course, if he would have had his own resources at his disposal - ”

“Fuck you.”

She continues on. “ - Or if it had been a more equitable match, maybe, the situation would have been fairer and more comfortable for everyone.” A beat. Chasten can’t bear to look back at her, but he hears the scrape of her knife on porcelain. “It’s my fault. I should have told you a long time ago. Gregory, can you pass the salt, please?” He does, eyes downcast. “Thank you.”

Chasten looks at Greg, quiet. He looks at his father, just as silent. He looks at Danny, discreetly sliding his phone out of his pocket to check an app. He looks at Andrea, calmly finishing her main course. He looks at Kim, still holding the sideboard, the sleek bracelets around her thin wrists barely trembling with rage.

“So nobody can fall in love with a rich person without having ulterior motives?” Chasten says. “That’s painting with an awfully broad brush, isn’t it?”

It’s the wrong thing. He knows it before he even says it, and he knows it even more so after. But he can’t bear to be quiet and decorative anymore. He glances at Greg. He has Greg’s attention finally, but he looks as frozen as a panicked deer.

Andrea smiles at him. If the context precluded the possibility, he’d think it was a look of sympathy. “What did you say you do, Chasten?”

“I’m a substitute teacher,” he says.

“And what else?” It’s taken for granted that there’s something else.

“A bartender,” he says. ( _And barista_ , he leaves out.)

“That’s quite the combination,” she says. She glances beside her, at Greg, gesturing between the two of them with the tines of her fork. “Did you two meet at the bar?”

Greg twists his watch. “It doesn’t matter where we - ”

“Yes,” Chasten says, defiant.

“After Greg got off work?”

“Yes.”

“So he was wearing the suit and the corporate armor, was he? The Patek Philippe?”

He realizes suddenly that he’s somehow been trapped. But he keeps fighting against the net he feels closing around him.

“Yes,” he says.

“So you know what Patek Philippes are?”

“They’re watches.” A beat. He averts his eyes. “Ma’am.”

She leans back in her chair and sips her wine. “If you know what they are, you know how much they sell for.”

“I - ”

She interrupts. “You live in a small apartment in a run-down neighborhood, don’t you? Work yourself to the bone? Scramble to pick up shifts whenever and wherever you can?”

“Well, it…” He looks at Greg. He’s making no move except to push around the meat left on his plate. “Yes.”

Then Andrea does something unexpected. She sets her glass down and leans forward. Her gleaming eyes soften in the corners. Her tone almost turns pitying; it’s soft, warm, silky. “Tell me you didn’t see that watch and think to yourself, even for a moment, about taking it.”

“I - ” He laughs at the absurdity of the suggestion. He’s panicked to hear that his laugh sounds hollow. Greg looks up again. There’s a shock and betrayal there. Chasten tries to offer an explanation in his expression. _Keep your eyes on me_ , he tries to say with his own, desperation growing, but this time Greg doesn’t hear him.

“I know how it goes,” Andrea is saying. “When you’re a poor bartender, you learn who might tip well based on the make of their watches. Do you know how I know that?”

Chasten swallows. “No, I don’t.” She keeps staring at him. “Ma’am.”

“Because before I went to school,” she said, “I was a waitress who lived off those tips. I learned how to read people. And then I went to school and got a job and met the boss’s son. Then I became the boss.”

Chasten tosses a quick helpless glance at Andrea’s husband. He doesn’t seem to object to this characterization.

“So,” Andrea continues, “don’t deign to tell me what poor people’s motivations are or aren’t, or what my family’s motivations are or aren’t. I know what it’s like to be poor. And I know my family, Mr. Glezman. I _know_ them. You do not.”

Chasten feels as if the breath has been punctured out of him. Without knowing why, he nods in a kind of desperately eager agreement.

When Greg speaks again, his voice is quiet. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to - ”

“For God’s _sake_ , Greg, none of this is about you,” Kim says. It sounds like a curse.

Chasten’s pulse is hammering between his ears, but he holds onto his silverware as if it will somehow tether him to the table and keep him from sinking through the travertine floor in shame.

Gradually, though, he becomes aware that he’s broken some kind of tension. Kim rallies. “So what do you want me to do, Mom? Lock Eddie up? House arrest? What?”

“Don’t be an idiot. All I want you to do is to go home and treat him right for once. I want him to feel like he owes you.” She twists the knife. “Are you capable of that? Of treating people right? No more of this sneaking around, seeing other - ”

“Mom,” Danny says, and even he sounds tired.

Andrea’s answering whisper is low and scornful. “It’s _debasing_.”

Danny shakes his head a little and quirks his eyebrows at his food. There’s a moment of silence. Finally Kim pushes herself off the sideboard and stands up straight. Her voice is strained.

“I need to make a call,” she says. “Excuse me.”

They can hear her heels making sharp clicks on the stairs. Andrea calls after her. “Tell Eddie it’s alright. I really mean that.” A beat. Then, half to Kim and half to the table: “Assuming that’s who you’re calling.” She looks at Chasten and raises her wine glass. “Love and money are funny things,” she says. “I hope she’ll learn that someday.”

For a long while, nobody says anything. Eventually, though, Chasten finds the bravery to look up.

Andrea is smiling at her husband.

Her husband is blandly smiling back.

Danny glances helplessly at the empty doorway, but finally he slips his phone back in his pocket and starts eating again.

Chasten takes a breath and looks straight ahead of him. Greg is looking straight back, expressionless.

*

Dessert drags on. The torte is accompanied by a fierce inquisition from Andrea about various facets of the operations of the Chicago branch, which Greg answers in excruciatingly dutiful detail. By the time he’s answered all of the questions to her satisfaction, it’s too late to catch their flight. When Greg points this out, all Andrea says is, “Yes, and that's the whole reason we _have_ the jet.” Greg doesn’t answer her, just presses his lips tight together and, when her back is turned, looks at her with a seething scorn.

“I’ll call to arrange it and then get your coats,” she says.

“We’ll get our own coats,” Greg says, and he curtly turns and leaves her alone in the drawing room.

Chasten follows him down the hall. Behind one of the doors is a small, elegantly appointed room, stocked with coats and wooden hangers and a tall mirror. Kim is there, her ivory cashmere coat hanging unbuttoned from her shoulders. She’s reapplying lipstick.

“You were supposed to cushion the blow, Greg,” she says, not wasting time on preliminaries. “That’s the whole reason I brought you here in the first place. If I knew you were going to pull your old doormat routine…” She shakes her head once, as if to shake the disgust off her.

“I know,” Greg says wearily. He sounds as if he’s said it a thousand times already to a thousand different people. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t prepared for - ”

Kim turns around and, to Chasten’s surprise, gestures at him. “Yeah, well, _he_ wasn’t prepared, either! And he still did more to derail her than you did.” She looks Chasten up and down, then nods, approvingly. “I like you,” she says. “You’re an asset. I hope you stick around.”

Greg is quiet. “If he doesn’t, it’s your fault.”

She turns back to the mirror. “Hm,” she says, tilting her head to take off her heavy earrings. The single disbelieving syllable says everything.

Greg lifts Chasten’s coat off the hanger, as carefully as if it’s the most expensive one there. He holds it open for him. “Why don’t we leave her?” Greg asks as Chasten struggles into the warmth between Greg’s arms.

She shoots a withering glare into the mirror. “Because you can’t divorce a mother, Greg.”

“I don’t mean divorcing her,” he says. “I mean striking out on our own. We could follow Eddie’s lead, get some friends together, start - ”

As he talks, she unzips her handbag and, irritated, stuffs it with her phone and lipstick and earrings. “Not this again,” she mutters.

“What?”

She turns around. Her arms cross. “You’ve been feeding me that line for fifteen years. If starting fresh was that easy, we both would have done it a long time ago. Yes? Yes.”

Greg doesn’t say anything to that. Chasten can tell, there probably isn’t anything _to_ say.

“So, then,” Kim says. She starts buttoning her coat. Chasten can smell the evening’s alcohol on her breath, but she’s still remarkably steady, even in stilettos. “You have the next phone conference on your calendar, don’t you? For tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll talk to you then. Don’t be surprised if I’m extremely short with you.” She buttons the last button and turns to Chasten, offering to shake his hand. “It was great to meet you, and thank you.” She shoots a final accusing glare at Greg, then turns her attention back to Chasten. “Don’t listen to what our mom says. We don’t.” A wry half-smile twists her freshly red lips. “At least now when this family comes at you with a contract, you know not to sign it.”

*

As soon as the town car door shuts, Greg is tripping over himself to apologize. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m sorry; I’m so fucking sorry, I - ”

Chasten feels numb. “It’s okay,” he says.

“I was expecting she’d be rude to us, but she’s _never_ that rude to guests; I don’t know what got - ”

“It’s okay,” Chasten says again.

It isn’t okay. They ride in silence. Chasten looks out the window at all the people in the dark, at the garishly lit storefronts and desolate corporate lobbies.

A few minutes later, Greg tries again. “She’s full of shit, and I’m so sorry that - ”

Chasten interrupts. “I’m not with you for your money,” he says. His eyes don’t move. If he focuses in a certain close way, he can see his reflection in the window superimposed onto the Manhattan streetscape. “I’m with you for you. I hope you know that.”

He feels fingers twine with his between them.

“But.” He hesitates about following through. _Be honest,_ he remembers. _Be completely honest._ “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start flirting with you because of the watch.”

The motions of Greg’s fingers in his stop.

“Why…?” He stops and takes a moment. His voice is low with emotion. “Why would you tell me that?”

Chasten doesn’t know what to say. _Maybe it’s better to lie_ , he remembers. He glances over at Greg just in time to see him look away and out the opposite window. His hand is squeezed, then carefully dropped.

“I’m sorry,” Chasten says, and all Greg does is nod.

*

He’s never been in a private plane before, but he’s too exhausted to take the experience in properly. He thinks about going to work tomorrow and telling Toni and his coworkers, imagines regaling them with stories of scallops and venison as they eat next to the alley dumpster, but then he realizes that nobody would believe him, and the thought makes him feel absurd and a little afraid.

He thinks a lot during the flight, because Greg doesn’t talk to him, and he doesn’t talk to Greg. But after it seems as if they’ve been droning through the skies for hours, Chasten reaches his breaking point. “Penny for your thoughts,” he says.

Greg is looking out the window at the disconnected clusters of light spread far beneath them. “No thoughts,” he says. Clearly he doesn’t want to rehash the night without thinking it all over. The fact that thinking is clearly causing him so much pain makes any frustration Chasten has suddenly atrophy to pity.

“You have to have thoughts,” he says eventually, hesitantly encouraging. “I have thoughts.”

Greg shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Chasten just waits.

“If you really want to know,” he says, “I’m thinking about how…” He starts twisting his watch, then stops suddenly. “How Mom was right about the watch.”

Chasten takes that in. “Okay,” he says eventually.

Greg slides his stare away from the window and directs it straight at Chasten. “You thought about taking it, didn’t you?”

There’s nothing between them but the sound of the engines and the air rushing past the body of the plane. Chasten closes his eyes. He remembers a thought he'd had a few days after they'd met. He’d been halfway through grading a thick stack of papers, and he was driftily fantasizing about slipping out of Greg’s bed, scooping the watch off the foot of it, breezily walking past the doorman, wishing him good night, then vanishing into the Chicago night.

He opens his eyes. “Never,” he says.

Greg can’t see through him, he’s pretty sure, but his denial still isn’t enough. “What have you told your friends about me?” he asks.

“That you’re nice,” he says, “and that - ” He stops himself before he says “you have a nice condo.” “That you’re nice.” Greg’s expression stays flat. Chasten tries to telegraph how much being nice means to him. “If you knew my exes, you’d know that’s high praise.”

“So nothing about how I’m just okay but the money’s great?”

“No.”

His voice gets stiffer. “I just want to be very clear, Chasten, that if you only like me for what my name can offer, I’m not interested in - ”

“Oh,” Chasten says quietly. “I think it’s safe to say I don’t like you for your name.”

Greg doesn’t finish his sentence. Chasten wants to be furious at him, wants to have it all out here and now so by the time they land they can make up and go back to whatever it is they were thirty-six hours ago. But he’s too tired and too helpless to feel anything but sad.

“Prove it,” Greg says.

“How?” But as soon as he says the word, he knows the answer.

“Show me your phone.”

Chasten gives a tired, disbelieving half-laugh. Greg gets defensive.

“I showed you mine. I want to see what you told your friends about me. If you ever…” He starts talking faster; Chasten realizes it’s because he knows how horrible what he’s about to say sounds. “...If you ever called or texted any friends or pawn shops or jewelry - ”

“Jesus,” Chasten mutters.

It’s not a healthy demand to give into. He knows that much. But he has a sudden overwhelming desire to prove his innocence, just as a matter of indignant pride. He takes his phone and hands it over, and Greg says nothing as he starts to read.

Chasten suddenly remembers Peter’s text. To prove his good faith, he mentions it preemptively. “One guy texted me after a hookup, wanting a second go. I haven’t texted back. Other than him, no one. No gossip, no gloating, no _pawn shops_ , no - ”

Greg interrupts. “Peter?”

“Yeah.”

“Indiana number?”

“Yeah.”

They’re silent as Greg studies the text. “Seems like he’s into you,” he finally says, and Chasten can’t make sense of what he’s trying to get across. He feels a sudden, unexpected bitterness.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s a closeted politician.” He leans back. “I can’t be with someone who lies.”

Greg takes a moment. He nods, absorbing this. “How’d you two - ?” he asks, but he catches himself. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter.”

There’s nothing else remotely incriminating, Chasten knows. _Bank balances, maybe_ , he thinks, but he pushes the thought down. After a while he reaches out his hand. Greg understands. He puts the phone back in his palm, and returns his gaze out the window.

Chasten half-expects an apology. It doesn’t come. He waits for tears. Those don’t come, either.

Eventually the attendant comes smiling to take away their drinks. “Gentlemen,” she says, smiling. “We’ll be starting our descent in about five minutes.”

Greg is too deep in thought again to say anything. Chasten takes over the niceties for him. “Thank you,” he says, “you’ve been very kind,” and the attendant disappears and leaves them alone. He looks hard at Greg. Looks out the window. Looks at his own phone, and slowly starts turning it over in his hand.

“I’m going to use the restroom,” he finally says.

Greg glances at him, nods. He looks miserable. Chasten stands up, feeling heavy. He touches Greg’s shoulder briefly. There’s no reaction. _To be fair,_ he reminds himself a little bitterly, _there usually isn’t._

He locks himself in the little airplane bathroom and leans back against the narrow door. He feels lonelier than ever trapped in the tiny square compartment. They’ve been hitting wind all through the flight, and he’s pushed off balance a little as the engines start decreasing power.

He looks himself in the mirror, straight in the eyes.

He takes his phone and answers Peter’s text.

_Tomorrow night, 9.30. My apartment. Bring dinner._

He starts typing again.

_I need to forget_

He deletes the second message before he sends it.


	7. Chapter 7

Peter’s late. Chasten realizes as soon as he's thought it that he has no idea if Peter is a 'running late' or 'right on time' kind of person, and he's not sure why the thought throws him off.

The idea of Peter has lived in the back of his brain since they met, even as he's tried to forget about him. He's kind of absurdly flattered that 'I do this once a year'-Peter wanted to come back for more, but also weirdly nervous about having a physical presence to compare the idea of sweet, repressed, tender Peter to again. 

For every minute past nine thirty there isn't a knock on the door he gets more annoyed. The fucking nerve of the fucking guy who disappeared for two months – having said 'this isn't a thing I can do', no less – and then texts and asks to see him again without any kind of excuse or explanation.

And now he's not even on time.

Finally, fifteen minutes late, there's a timid knock. Peter is wearing what looks like the same suit, and his eyes are big and nervous. He’s holding a bag of take-out, as promised.

"I hope you like Chinese," he says, a tentative smile forming when he sees Chasten. 

"I do," Chasten says, taking the bag from Peter’s hand and setting it on the kitchen counter.

Peter looks puzzled, a question about to form on his lips, but Chasten is faster. He reaches out and grabs the back of Peter's neck, pulling him roughly into a kiss. With his other hand, he pushes the door closed, then shoves Peter up against it.

He swallows Peter's surprised exclamation, letting his free hand settle on Peter's hip, holding him steady.

“What - ?”

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Peter's hands push weakly against Chasten's chest, and he pulls back, arching an eyebrow.

"I," Peter starts, blinking fast and breathing heavily, "thought we were eating?"

“Maybe I’ll eat your ass if you ask nicely.”

Peter's breath hitches and his hips jerk against Chasten even as his gaze veers wildly away, and Chasten bites back a laugh at how easy it is to goad him.

"We'll reheat the food," he promises as he leans back in to press kisses against the exposed column of Peter's neck. "Right now I'm much more interested in you."

There’s an immediate moan and a flush in response. He can tell nobody has ever said this to Peter, and probably nothing like it, either. He wonders if Peter’s ever slept with anyone twice.

There's a whispered 'yeah' buried in Peter's shaky exhale, and his hands resettle on Chasten's waist, fingertips digging in hard when Chasten noses in under Peter's collar and his teeth scratch gently against the skin where the neck meets the shoulder.

"So what do you say," he whispers against Peter's skin. "Bedroom?"

Peter swallows and nods and squeaks out a 'yes', and Chasten hides his smile against Peter's adam's apple.

"Good," he says, straightening up and taking Peter's hand. A look flashes across Peter's face when Chasten lets go of his neck. He resolves to figure out what that means, and fucking soon.

He hasn't cleaned up his bedroom this time. It was the right call; Peter’s definitely too desperate to care. As soon as they're through the door Chasten takes hold of Peter again, drawing him into a dirty kiss, unbuttoning Peter's shirt. They pull apart just long enough to get Chasten's t-shirt and Peter's undershirt off, then fall against each other again.

For some reason he remembers the cold surround of the gas fireplace at Greg’s, but as soon as Peter is bare in front of him, it fades and Chasten pushes him onto the bed. He holds his breath for a second, worried that he's miscalculated, but Peter looks up at him, lips parted and eyes dark with lust. Something feral unfurls inside him, and he knows it shows in his smile, but Peter doesn't flinch.

Peter's arms come up to hold his shoulders, and his eyes flutter closed when Chasten kisses him. He remembers from last time how Peter responded to a deep kiss, a hint of teeth, hand pressed against the cheek, fingers curling around the back of the neck, so he does it again and is rewarded with a groan and jerking hips.

He feels frenzied in a way he hasn't for a while, in a way that isn't really like him, and he grinds down against the solid heat underneath him.

Peter's hands scrabble along the length of Chasten's back, stopping, suddenly timid, when they inch close to his ass. Normally, he might find it endearing, but tonight he can't help but feel annoyed at this man who can't even grope Chasten's ass without being coaxed into it.

He kisses along Peter's neck, satisfied with the moans it draws out, and bites gently along the shoulder. Peter seems to _really_ like that, thrusting up against Chasten in appreciation. He bites down harder, and savors Peter's low-pitched whimper.

He spends a while on Peter's shoulders, and tries not not think about what it means that he wants to fucking _mark_ this man. He glances up at Peter's face from time to time. His eyes are screwed shut, his brows furrowed, his cheeks flushed. His lips are parted to allow space for his heavy breaths, his tongue darting out to wet them.

It's not hard to figure out what Peter wants when he spreads his legs wider, thrusting his hips up against Chasten, but it still annoys Chasten that he's expected to read Peter's mind.

He leans up on his elbows, his nose just inches from Peter's. "Use your words, Peter." Peter's eyes fly open wide.

"I'm not doing anything until you ask for it," Chasten clarifies, as smoothly as he can.

The conflicting impulses warring inside Peter are mirrored out in his eyes and Chasten is darkly amused. Finally, Peter’s head tilts to the side. "Fuck me," he says, the words so rushed they almost stumble. His eyes fall shut while he says it, as if he can't bear the fact that a request like that would ever cross his lips. He takes a deep breath, opens his eyes again and looks back up at Chasten. "Please," he adds, and Chasten's not sure why that's what makes his stomach twist.

Chasten sits back, reaches over to get what he needs and takes a second to just look down at Peter. He's good-looking, which isn't something Chasten has spent a lot of time considering. Peter watches Chasten watch him, and quirks a smile when their eyes meet. Chasten isn’t sure why that aggravates him.

"Turn over," he says, nearly wincing himself at the frost in his tone. Peter either doesn't notice or doesn't care, because he nearly knees Chasten in the thigh in his haste to comply.

He takes his time getting Peter ready, crooking his fingers and making Peter moan, and finally - _finally_ \- Peter takes the hint. "Please," he gasps, between shuddering breaths. "Please fuck me."

Chasten leans forward, his weight along Peter's back, to whisper in his ear: "Oh, Peter, I’m going to _ruin_ you." 

Peter sobs in response.

He's not gentle. He knows he should be, but if he slows down there's room for thinking and he can't, right now. In a flash, he realizes Peter has gone still and quiet under his hands. He blinks, momentarily in the throes of a memory of the last time he was with Greg and how still he held his body. It rattles him and he tightens his grip on Peter's hips. He stops moving, holding on to Peter's hips, catching his breath. He counts the seconds in his head, _ten, eleven, twelve_ , until Peter squirms against him.

"Please fuck me," Peter says again, as if it’s the answer key to any problem that might be presented to him.

"I'm right here," Chasten says. "Take what you need."

Peter sounds like he's choking on his own breath. Chasten wants badly to bury himself in Peter over and over until he falls into blissful oblivion, but he wants _more_ to petulantly remind Peter he's part of what's happening here.

Finally, Peter takes a deep breath and thrusts back against Chasten. He's timid, hesitant at first, but as he finds a rhythm it melts away. Chasten grits his teeth and focuses on staying still, his fingers digging in hard over Pete's hip bones. He feels the warm movement of the bones in the shallow of his palms.

Peter seemed nervous about being noisy last time he was here, but he's clearly left those compuctions by the door tonight. He moans in a desperation Chasten can empathize with, bucking his hips wildly. He stops abruptly, pushed back firmly against Chasten. He works himself furiously and comes with a deep groan, and that's about all it takes for Chasten to fall over the edge with him. 

It takes him a few seconds to get his bearings, then he pulls away and crashes down on his side next to Peter, who slowly turns over on his back.

“You okay?” Chasten asks.

Peter looks at him. Chasten feels flayed open by the intense blue-eyed stare. He can’t tell what Peter feels, so he grasps feebly for a joke. “Forget your own name?”

Peter reaches out, shaking, and pulls Chasten’s head down until their foreheads are touching. They breathe together until Peter’s hand slips back to the pillow, next to his face. “Peter, right?” A smile ghosts across his lips. 

Chasten lets himself collapse back and enjoys the feeling of having someone next to him. “So do you have to --” he starts, facing the ceiling, then stops. He swallows. “I mean, can you stay the night?” 

Peter opens his eyes slowly and turns to look at Chasten. “Yeah,” he says, still short of breath. “I can stay, if you want.”

Chasten smiles. “I want.”

He gets up and grabs the box of tissues off his dresser, tossing them on the bed next to Peter before grabbing his underwear and going to clean up.

*

He reheats the food and brings it back to the bedroom with a smile, setting the boxes out on the sheet in front of Peter. 

“We’re eating in bed?” 

“Yeah?” Chasten frowns, suddenly insecure in the face of Peter’s skepticism. “You don’t like eating in bed?”

“I don’t know that I’ve eaten in bed since I was a kid.” Peter pauses as he picks up a container of something, opening it and sniffing it. “I mean, I must have in college, I’m sure…” He trails off uncomfortably when he realizes Chasten looks unhappy. 

Chasten grits his teeth. “I guess I’m just juvenile.” He reaches out to start moving the boxes again, humiliation burning in his gut. 

Peter’s eyes widen in alarm. “No, that’s-- That’s not what I meant. I’m just…” He seems to grasp for the right words. “It’s not really something I do, is all. It’s unfamiliar.” He looks at the food, then up at Chasten. “I think it’s pretty cozy, actually,” he declares, before frowning. “I’m worried I’ll spill soy sauce on your sheets.” 

All in one breath, Chasten’s seized with fear, but Peter doesn’t seem like he’s been turned off by his dramatic over-reaction, though his smile is careful and edged with tension, like he’s half-scared Chasten will blow up at him. This isn’t the guy who treats him like a kid, he reminds himself. 

“Oh,” he says, forcing a mischievous smile, “my sheets have seen worse.” His whole body feels warm with satisfaction when Peter blushes. He drops down opposite Peter and reaches for the food.

They say nothing for a while. Their hands brush a few times as they pick up and set down the warm containers. Cozy was the perfect word, Chasten decides. As they eat in the quiet, he starts feeling unspoken questions staring at him, but he doesn't know from where. Peter's head is ducked; he's concentrating - too hard, maybe - on transferring rice between boxes. 

“So you _are_ a teacher,” Peter says, incongruously, a minute later. 

Chasten looks up, confused at his tone for a second, and then a memory surfaces. _I think you’re in law school, or a teacher, or something like that._ He follows Peter’s line of sight; he left the letter from DePaul on the bedside table, right next to where Peter’s phone is resting. “A veritable Columbo,” he says.

Peter winces. “I didn’t mean to pry.” 

He waves it off. “It’s okay. I teach a few days a week, and work at Starbucks for the insurance.” He pauses, but Peter just waits. “And I bartend four nights a week.”

“What grade do you teach?” 

Chasten blinks. Peter is still smiling, watching him attentively. Most guys, if they get as far as the catalogue of Chasten’s various jobs, express disbelief or disdain, and he’s finding it hard to believe _Mayor Pete_ , of all fucking people, is sitting here taking it in stride.

“Middle school,” he says, “I sub in all over the place, but mostly eighth grade.” 

Peter chuckles. “Thank you for your service,” he says, mock-saluting with his chopsticks. “Don’t get me wrong,” he adds, “all teachers are amazing but middle school…” He whistles. “That must be challenging.” 

“It is,” Chasten admits. “But it’s worth it.” 

Peter smiles, and Chasten bites his lip, hard, to remind himself he’s not allowed to find Peter cute. “I’ll bet,” Peter says. “You start grad school in September?” 

Chasten’s stomach tightens. “I--” He stops. There’s something about Peter that makes Chasten want to just talk and talk, and he has to check himself to make sure he wants to actually tell him these things. He thinks he does, but he takes a few bites to stall for time. “Probably not,” he says, finally. 

Peter’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” He tries to affect a casual tone. “I was rejected for a couple of scholarships and the loans I can get will probably be pretty crippling. I just…” He sighs. “I don’t know if it’ll be worth it. I’m scared it’ll be a waste.” He studies Peter’s attentive features. “What do _you_ think?”

He expects Peter to deflect, but he doesn’t. “I think,” he says slowly, “that an education is never wasted.” He keeps eye contact with Chasten as he takes a bite of his food and Chasten wonders how deep inside him Peter can see. “But,” Peter adds after a minute of chewing thoughtfully, “that’s easy for me to say, because I _did_ get some scholarships. Big loans are a big deal.”

It’s all becoming too real too fast, and Chasten swallows hard. “Yes, they are,” he says. He focuses on his food, grasping hard for a new topic of conversation without really finding one. He could rib Peter about his Rhodes Scholarship, but something inside him is resisting the idea of giving away that he cared enough to google Peter. 

“So what kind of bar do you work at?” 

He looks up and meets Peter’s smile. It’s a bland question, but Peter is either actually interested or very good at faking it. 

He’s told about three of his best 'drunk and disorderly bar patron' stories when the quirk of Peter’s lips finally breaks his resistance. He tastes like sweet and sour sauce when he leans into the kiss. 

Chasten’s not entirely clear on how they manage to move all the food out of the way without spilling things, but it’s not long before he gets to sink into Peter’s embrace, kissing him into the pillow. 

He slots himself in between Peter’s thighs, pressing against him. Peter gasps into the kiss and Chasten can’t stop a smile. “Eager,” he murmurs. 

Peter blushes, a deep embarrassed red, but before Chasten can even half-form an apology his hips buck up. His eyes close when he meets friction in Chasten and he lets out a low groan. 

“Yeah?” Chasten asks gently. Peter nods in response, his eyes still screwed firmly shut. 

Chasten bites his lip, tries to game it out. “You want me so bad, Peter?” 

There’s an immediate twitch of hips against his. Peter opens his eyes but doesn't respond. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

“It's okay,” Chasten coos gently. “I want you too.” 

Peter's eyes flutter closed again, as if he can't bear to face the force of his own desire, but he grips Chasten tighter, pulls him into another kiss.

He kisses as if he's hungry. Which of course he is, Chasten concedes. He's gripped with the same urge from last time they met, a sort of desperate imperative to _make it good_ for this poor starved man.

Chasten kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him. Peter goes easy and pliant under his kisses. Chasten presses down a little more, searching for resistance and finding none. He runs a hand down Peter's side, enjoying the shiver it provokes. "What do you want," he whispers. He's not sure why, he just has a vague sense that talking out loud might break something.

"Kiss me," Peter says, too quickly to have thought about it, eyes still closed. 

Chasten finds it sweet despite himself, and indulges him. For a while he almost loses himself in the kisses, in the soft shifts of Peter's body under him. Peter's hands find the hem of his underwear, shoving his thumbs inside the waistband and pushing down. Chasten grins and helps. It's all slow and sweet and he doesn't want to let go of Peter's lips. 

*

He texts Greg with sweat cooling on his chest, thanking him for the trip to New York. 

Through the velvety darkness, he hears Peter shift. He considers reaching out for him, but keeps his hands to himself. He’s too tired to comfort through hookup angst. Instead he rolls over to his side and narrows his eyes, imagines he can see the dark outline of Peter in front of him. 

“What’s on your mind?” he asks. 

Peter sighs, and Chasten is almost sure he can see the heave of his chest. “How do people sleep together?” 

He quirks a smile. “You’re a little old for the talk, Peter.”

It’s a strange thing; he thinks he can feel Peter smiling even though he can’t see him. And there’s a smile in Peter’s voice when he speaks next. “No, I mean sharing a bed. Actually sleeping.”

He swallows. The implications of his question are kind of too painful to absorb. “You’ve never - ?” 

The maybe-outline of Peter slumps. “I mean…” He hesitates. “With girlfriends.” There’s a regretful, embarrassed beat. “But that was a long time ago. And I never slept that well.”

Chasten reaches out before he even realizes he does it, running his fingers along the curve of Peter’s ear and into his hair. Peter hums faintly and leans into the touch. He moves his fingers through Peter’s hair, down to the hairs at the nape of his neck, then up the scalp with slow light circular scritches. He almost doesn’t notice how much closer Peter has moved, but suddenly he feels breath against his skin. He can’t explain why it makes him flinch away and gasp, his hand falling away from Peter’s scalp. 

“Are you okay?” The question from the darkness is halting, hesitant.

“Yeah, I....” He stops, swallows. Curves his hand around the back of Peter’s head again. “Sorry,” he says. He has no idea how to explain the sudden swirl of thoughts that won’t quiet down.

“About what?” 

He starts combing through Peter’s hair again. “I don’t know,” he lies, and wonders for a moment if he said it too quietly for Peter to hear. 

He starts when a warm hand lands at his waist, but Peter just rests it there and it feels comforting.

“That’s okay,” Peter breathes. He inches closer and closer, resting his forehead against Chasten’s chest. “You’re so kind,” he murmurs.

Chasten thinks of Greg, and how he hasn’t once wanted to touch Chasten affectionately in the big beds they’ve slept in. He glances over his shoulder back towards his phone.

“I’m really not.”

Peter tightens his grip at Chasten’s waist momentarily. “Mmhmm,” he hums driftily.

Chasten realizes Peter’s falling asleep. He rolls to his back slowly, and pulls Peter with him gently. Peter settles with his cheek on Chasten’s chest. He absentmindedly takes one of Peter’s hands and strokes his thumb across it as the breaths over his chest even out slowly. He feels weird about this blossoming urge to protect closeted, repressed Peter who doesn’t even want a relationship. _He really seems to enjoy being protected, though._ The thought is enough to make him drop Peter’s hand. 

He keeps drifting fingers through Peter’s hair, more for his own comfort than Peter’s. His hair is soft and thick and smells good. He follows Peter into sleep a few minutes later, with Peter laying on his shoulder and his hand on his head.


End file.
